A new and curious treatise of the nature and effects of simple earth, water, and air, when applied to the human body: how to live for many weeks, months, or years, without eating anything whatever / [James Graham].

  • Graham, James, 1745-1794
Date:
1793
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new and curious treatise of the nature and effects of simple earth, water, and air, when applied to the human body: how to live for many weeks, months, or years, without eating anything whatever / [James Graham]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in Africa, in America, &c. when they were in the lafl: extremity from the fea-feurvy, and when all medicines, &c were of no manner of nfe ; and that extremely putrid, debilitating, and deadly difeafe, the fea-feurvy, putrid fevers, &c. mult ever be recurring, fo long as the men are daily fed with over-faked and putrid fwine’s and other flefh, and with putrid, offenfive, fait butter, and drink water unventilated and unagitated, and have the decks of their (hips fo low. and fo few hatchways or open gratings in them. It is ft range that they will not ufe lefs of that unnatural and hurtful food, and far more found wheat, barley, and oatmeal, with honey, treacle, or raw fugar;—plenty of roots, fruits, Britifh herbs, &c. and vinegar inwardly and outwardly applied. I hope that his Majefty and Hon. Board of Admiralty, will pay due attention to the advice which I had the honour of giving into his majefty’s own hand, at Weymouth, lafl; autumn, a few days before I embarked on board the packet, at Falmouth, for Lifbon, as they are eminently calculated to promote the health, Arength, and courage of thofe brave defenders of our comparatively fuperiorly favoured and happy ifland—the as yet envied garden of peace, wealth, and liberty -—watered and fhone on by the motl high God! Nature, in her fweet, all-bleffing flmplicity, hath long been my darling ftudy and theme; and I have had the great honour and felicity, not only of extending earth-bathing to the cure of molt of thofe other difeafes, (befides the fea-feurvy) which have proved the moft obftinate and fatal to human life, and the moft mortifying to medical and chirurgical men—but alfo of calling off the attention of my fellow-creatures from vague and conje&ural hypothefes and theories—from being amufed and deluded with technical words, founds, and certain arrangements of the letters of the alphabets—and front ufing and trufting to foreign, expenflve, and compound medi¬ cines—and efpecially from the tortures of faline, calciform, and con¬ centrated mineral, metallic, and other medicines, long tortured and rendered deadly by horrid mineral acids, and by infernal chemical fires and procelTes;—and making them enamoured with the beauty and powers of nature in her native flmplicity andfweetnefs :—fnewing them the almofl; Almighty virtues and powers that are latent in what we call the four simple elements—how all difeafes may be pre¬ vented and cured by the proper ufe of them-—and how to excite, and call them forth, and apply them to the noblefl: and moft important purpofes of life, health and happinefs, bodily and mental, even till the extremeft old age. With this view, before I prefume to recommend novel practices to my fellow-creatures, 1 have made numerous and bold experiments on n\y own perfon, having been buried naked in the earth, in fand and in mud, in almofl:every foil, and clime, andfeafon, more than three hundred times, in the courfe of the laft eight years, generally up to my lips, and fometimes over head, fo as that I could breathe, which is very fate and eafy, the earth being porous, and the