The economy of health, or, The stream of human life from the cradle to the grave : with reflections, moral, physical, and philosophical, on the septennial phases of human existence / by James Johnson.

  • Johnson, James, 1777-1845.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The economy of health, or, The stream of human life from the cradle to the grave : with reflections, moral, physical, and philosophical, on the septennial phases of human existence / by James Johnson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    SECOND SEPTENNIAD. Seven to fourteen years. Creeping, like snail, unwillingly to school. Tns second (too oft the first) Septenniad intro- duces us to one of the most important personages in this world—a personage whose image is never effaced from our memory to the latest day of our existence ! Who has ever forgotten that happy or unhappy epoch of our lives, and that stern arbiter % of our fate, when we were wont To trace The day's disaster in his morning face ? After the lapse of half a century, the lineaments of his countenance are as fresh on the tablet of my memory as on the first day of their impression. These reminiscences are not unaccompanied by some compunctions of conscience. The personage in question is one who is more sinned against than sinning. His office can only be envied by that public functionary who executes the last and most pamful sentence of the law—or perhaps by the vic- tim who ascends the scaffold without hope of re- prieve ! He who cultivates the soil under his foot, has generally a fair recompense for his labour— and, at all events, is not upbraided for the failure of his harvests. But he who cultivates the brains of pupils, whether male or female, has often a most ungrateful task to perform. To expect a good crop of science or literature from some intellects, is about as hopeless as to expect olives to thrive on the craggy summit of Ben Nevis, or the pineapple