Dr Jaeger's essays on health-culture / Gustav Jaeger ; translated and edited by Lewis R.S. Tomalin.

  • Jäger, Gustav, 1832-1917
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr Jaeger's essays on health-culture / Gustav Jaeger ; translated and edited by Lewis R.S. Tomalin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/328
    PREFACE TO THE REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION. “ HYSICIAN, heal thyself!” This inward monition first started me on the special path of investigation which has led to the results recorded in these pages. In ray youth I was an active, vigorous athlete, but before I was thirty an injury to the leg, accompanied by blood poisoning and followed by varicose veins, rendered all strenuous exertion painful, and condemned me in an ever- increasing degree to a sedentary life. As a consequence, I gradually grew fat and scant of breath; my digestion was disturbed; I suffered from hemorrhoids, and was troubled with a tendency to chill diseases. While my health was in this state I was appointed to lecture on anthropology, in addition to my course on zoology, at the Royal Polytechnic School, Stuttgart. Conformably to my invariable rule to proceed not merely theoretically, but also practically, in whatever I undertake, I determined to choose for my lectures on anthropology the subject of “ Health Culture.’ But here it seemed to me, sick man as I was, that my lecturing on health was as though a bald-headed person should extol the virtues of a patent “ hair restorer; ” and this feeling inspired my endeavour to heal myself with the energy requisite to the success which I have achieved.