Lectures on digestion and diet.

  • Thackrah, Charles Turner, 1795-1833.
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on digestion and diet. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    residence in my bosom, as never to depart from it/’ He enjoyed reading and literary conversation : he wrote eight hours a day : nay, at the age of 83, “ I have been able” says he, “ to write a very entertaining comedy, abounding with innocent mirth and pleasant jests.” This buoyancy of mind and spirits, so rare in advanced life, he justly attributed to the reduced quantity of his aliments.* The Hermit derived from his restricted diet, not only health, but I conceive also, those pleasures of ima- gination, which only could compensate the want of so- cial intercourse. Pleasant dreams, it is well known, may be obtained by attention to food and habits; and it is probable, that the raptures and visions of happy en- thusiasts, were, in no small degree, dependent on their scanty diet. I recollect no instance of a happy enthu- siast being a gormand or an epicure. We wish to live, not only as long, but as much, and as happily, as possible. A man whose brain is op- pressed, scarcely lives as an intellectual being ; a man with a nauseant stomach, has not even animal enjoy- ment. Yet we start at the idea of being confined to a system of temperance, as if it were confine- * A Mechanic, whom I attended, some months ago, in a severe inflamma- tion of the Brain, took no food for several days. During this period he enjoyed great self-complacence. He often exclaimed, “I am a greater man than Achilles;’’ “ Oh, what a mind I have !” He became extremely animated. His thoughts were engaged alternately with Astronomy, Poetry and Mechanism. He even in- vented a machine, which other persons had fruitlessly attempted. This increased vigour of mind, I attribute chiefly to the excitement of the cerebral blood-vessels : but it is worthy of remark, that subsequently as he took food, his intellect propor- tionately declined. He now assures me, that his siind was never so powerful either before or since his illness, and he dwells with pleasure on the Elysian scenes which his imagination displayed. The reduction of diet, he conceives to have been the princijxil cause.