Ourselves, our food, and our physic / by Benjamin Ridge.

  • Ridge, Benjamin.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ourselves, our food, and our physic / by Benjamin Ridge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    or in excess, carrying away tlie vital agents from the system which are the very germ of life. Can wo wonder at the prostra- tion caused by a brisk diarrha'a or by cholera ? The ancients and moderns have fouglit many a battle, with more or less acrimony, over this poor body of ours. One of tlieir greatest contentions being over the solids and fluids. One sect de- claring that life, health, disease, and treatment depended on the fluids or humours; hence they were called ‘ Humour- ALiSTS ; ’ the other declared for the solids ; hence they Avere called ‘ SoLiDisTS and even now the dispute is not settled. But they liavo either forgotten or not taken into accoimt the laws of the gases; we may expect, therefore, some day to have a new sect called the ‘ Gaseists.’ However, it is to bo hoped we shall get wiser, and see that a perfect equilateral triangle can be made out of these theories, and by reasoning on the laws of vital chemistry, find that one is so dei)endcnt on the other, that neither can be called tlie least nor the greatest. Solids, fluids, and gases are all so necessary, co- existent, and useful, and so merge into and actually form one another, tliat each is of equal importance in life and health, and in the ctu'e and treatment of disease ; instanced daily in a thousand ways. Man, however, will make arbitrary rules for health, which, coming as they do with some stamp of autho- rity, are more or less obeyed. Thus the edict has gone forth that the bowels should act every day ; and when anything un- toward happens to the system, tlie first duty is to em2>ty the largo intestines, and that no treatment can bo correct unless these jiarts are eflectually kept open. Noav let us read dame Nature’s book, and throu-ing all these cherished scholastic rules aside, judge for om-selvos. She requires manures to get her vital gases ; we have seen tlie size and form of her field, and liow careful she is that it sliould not bo robbed. A vast numlier of persons have a regular daily action, and tints jiart with one-third of the contents of the largo gut, reserving the other two-thirds for the suiijily of vital gases. Another class, unable to eliminate these vital gases so readily, require a longer time to do so. Well! Nature says, ‘take more time,’ and it is found they are just as healthy by the delay in such an act, as the others are by a daily regularity. In another class, even a longer jioriod is necessary. ‘ Take your time,’ ssiys the good dame ; whilst in others, especially among females,