The family physician and guide to health : a system of domestic medicine, including a treatise on midwifery and the diseases peculiar to women / by E.B. Hammack.

  • Hammack, E. B. (Elijah B.)
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The family physician and guide to health : a system of domestic medicine, including a treatise on midwifery and the diseases peculiar to women / by E.B. Hammack. 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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    An author justly remarks: Almost any common food is wholesome to a temperate man who preserves his body and his mind in an active, but not hurried, state; for thus he ventilates and purifies his blood, and brings every fibre of his frame into the best condition for the proper enjoyment and use of life. It is astonishing how much the health is often improved by thinking nothing about it, but just going about one's business, and using the common means of subsistence, under the guidance of common sense and a good conscience. But mere ignorance can not do this, and we must be able to con- sider before we can reasonably do our duty. Even sav- ages have their rules of health, and no one has ever reached a hale old age without due attention to exercise, air, temperature, rest and diet._ Although the dieting of soldiers and sailors may prove what is the average requirement in respect to food by persons laboriously employed, yet this average itself indicates that nature is very accommodating or such a variety of constitutions could not all be treated in the same manner. Positive rules for the direction of appetite are not consistent with nature, and every one who possesses reason will ordin- arily find a better guide in his own discretion and good sense than in any dietary that the doctors can direct. In partaking of food much will depend upon the appetite ; if this be healthy or natural, a proper amount of aliment will refresh and invigorate the system; if it be artificial, that is, excited by stimulants of various kinds, not only will the stomach be seriously injured, but irreparable mischief will frequently be done to the system. Some persons form an appetite of habit, that is, accustoming themselves to eat at certain hours, whether the food is required or not, and often without any relish for it; such individuals, as well as those who take