The philosophy of health, or, health without medicine : a treatise on the laws of the human system / by L.B. Coles.

  • Coles, L. B. (Larkin Baker), 1803-1856.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The philosophy of health, or, health without medicine : a treatise on the laws of the human system / by L.B. Coles. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    INTRODUCTION. There is scarcely any subject so universally neglected as a knowledge of the laws of health and life. We naturally love to be well, and dread to be sick; yet take little or no pains to economize our health or to ward off disease. We indulge our appetites and inclinations in violation of the laws of health, until we are overtaken with the penalty which the Great Author of our being has affixed to them, in the form of disease, and then, perhaps, charge the result to Divine Providence. It may, with propriety, be said, that nine cases out of ten, if not ninety-nine out of a hundred, of the ailments which annoy mankind, espe- cially those of a chronic character, might with ease be avoided. We might as well be enjoy- ing health, as a general thing, as to be groaning under pains and diseases. Though we miglS not be able to repel measles, small-pox, scarlet fever, and many other contagious or epidemic diseases, yet nearly all chronic diseases, and a very large proportion of those which are acute, might be prevented; and even those Avhich could not be avoided,—for instance, that fearful malady, the small-pox,—by habitual obedience to law, would be made of much milder form. Very little is known by the people at large on this subject, and what is known is very