Health for the million : including hints on the physical training of youth, and the treatment of invalids and old age, with observations on unhealthy employments / by the author of How to make home happy, The accidents of life, etc., etc.
- Date:
- 1858
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Health for the million : including hints on the physical training of youth, and the treatment of invalids and old age, with observations on unhealthy employments / by the author of How to make home happy, The accidents of life, etc., etc. Source: Wellcome Collection.
27/360
![keeps the skin soft, pliant, ami transparent, and the eyes moist and brilliant, is su]»plied by a sort of filtration from the ex- tremities of those hair-like blood-vessels which carry the trans- parent part of the blood. If, therefore, these vessels are shut up by the use of dru^s, so that they can no longer carry the t transparent fluid to moisten the skiu and the eyes, the source. . of all comeliness is destroyed. “ Many things,” observes an old writer, “ are written in our 1 books which seem to the reader to be excellent remedies; but Tilley that make use of them are often deceived, and take for 1 physic, poison.” Few things are so productive of injury to health, or so readily convert a trifling ailment into an alarming and fatal disease, as :the misapplication of medical maxims, and the constant misuse ; of medicinal substances. Either long study and much expe- I rience have no superior claims over ignorance and conjecture, or ; mankind are singularly heedless of their health and bodily ^comfort when they play with the most potent and dangerous (drugs of the apothecary’s shop, to say nothing of the poisons concealed in the innumerable patent mixtures, pills, syrups, land elixirs, w'hich they credulously swallow on the faith of empirics, whose impudence is by far the most prominent trait in their character. The most complex and wonderful of all rpieces of mechanism, the living human body, is abandoned »as a fair subject on which every knave is allowed to try his hhand for the benefit of his purse, or well-meaning bu.sybody for the display of his or her vanity. I The rule is exceedingly simple for the guidance of those who, either in their own persons or for their friends, would wish to ^ward oH'an attack of impending disease. It is to abstain from reverything which might possibly be injurious as food, strong Mrinks, inordinate exercise, exposure to extremes of temperature, the shock of the passions, ikc. A proper knowledge of the most important functions of the body is highly necessary. Our pre- ceding remarks do not apply to this, but to the love for empi- ricism and the fondness for quack medicines evinced by many persons, and which produce the disastrous consequences we have mentioned. An acquaintance with physiology would be found of great importance in combating popular prejudices, and explaining many matters which are now left entirely to the '.medical man. Such studies would teach us to ward off many liseases which, thrmigh ignorance, grow upon us, and cause nfinite discomfort afterwaids. ! Moat men, says Dr. Cheyne, “ know when they are ill, but very few when they are well; and yet it i.s most certain that it ; s easier to jTreserve health than to recover it, and to prevent i diseases than to cure them. 'Towards the first the means are i nostly in our own power; little else is required than to bear i](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28115260_0027.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
