Notes on health : showing how to preserve or regain it, by diet, regimen, &c, with a familiar explanation of the chief functions of the human body, and their relation to the mind / by W.T. Coleman.

  • Coleman, W. T.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on health : showing how to preserve or regain it, by diet, regimen, &c, with a familiar explanation of the chief functions of the human body, and their relation to the mind / by W.T. Coleman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    adviser will find in his patient's intelligence his best help, instead of that hindrance he too often encounters in the uninformed. In the present age, practical utility is everything, and I hope we have said enough to prove the claim of our subject to this advantage—if life and health are worth preserving,—but the thoughtful reader will surely feel some interest in regarding the laws of his own nature in another aspect. The mechanism of a steam-engine is thought worthy of the study and admiration of educated men, who have no direct concern in its applications. They trace the hand of skill in its construction, admire and praise it. But what are the wonders of the most intricate machinery, compared with those of a living man ? Apart from life, even as a machine, he would be wonderful; but he lives, he moves, and has his being in G-od. To that God alone can the deep mystery of his life be perfectly known. There is, indeed, in man something of the infinite, yet the faculties by which he can contem- plate himself are but finite. We can, therefore, know even ourselves but in part, and this partial view we obtain only by reflected light. Just as we see our natural face only by reflection in a mirror, so, to understand anything of ourselves, we must hold the mirror up to nature; and it is often in a figure or allegory that we obtain the most lively concep- tion of what we are. The human body, with its many members, its well compacted joints, its varied offices and parts, mutually inter-dependent, has been ever the standing type of a body politic, such as it should be. Let us for a moment b 2