only a bare, but a miserable state of life. These are, indeed, the lowest of pleasures, and the least pure; for we can never relish them but when they are mixed with the contrary pains. The pain of hunger must give us the pleasure of eating, and here the pain outbalances the pleasure; and as the pain is more vehement, so it lasts much longer; for as it begins before the pleasure, so it does not cease but with the pleasure that extinguishes it, and both expire together. They think, therefore, that none of those pleasures are to be valued any further than as they are necessary; yet they rejoice in them, and with due gratitude acknowledge the tenderness of the great Author of nature, who has planted in us appetites, by which those things that are necessary for our preservation are likewise made pleasant to us. For how miserable a thing would life be if those daily diseases of hunger and thirst were to be carried off by such bitter drugs as we must use for those diseases that return seldomer upon us! And thus these pleasant as well as proper gifts of nature maintain the strength and sprightliness of our bodies."

Such are the sentiments of one of the greatest philosophers the world has produced, and the reader cannot but feel edified by the liberal and truthful construction put upon health. Dr. Johnson wisely observes that, among the innumerable follies by which we lay up in our youth repentance and remorse for the succeeding part of our lives, there is scarcely any against which warnings are of less efficacy than the neglect of health. When the springs of motion are yet elastic-when the heart bounds with vigour, and the eye sparkles with spirit, it is with difficulty that we are taught to conceive the imbecility that every hour is bringing upon us, or to imagine that the nerves which are now braced with so much activity will lose all their power under the gripe of time, relax with numbness, and totter with debility.

"Health is, indeed, so necessary to all the duties as well as pleasures of life, that the crime of squandering it is equal to the folly, and he that, for a short gratification, brings weakness and diseases upon himself, and for the pleasures of a few years, passed in the tumults of diversion and the clamours of merriment, condemns the maturer and more experienced part of his life to the chamber and the couch, may be justly reproached, not only as a spendthrift of his own happiness, but as the robber of the public as a wretch that has voluntarily disqualified himself for the business of his station, and refused that part which Providence assigns him in the general task of human nature."

Dr. Cheyne remarks on the same subject, "He that wantonly transgresseth the self-evident rules of health is guilty of a degree of self-murder." The same writer observes, also, that such conduct forms a moral crime, "for the infinitely wise

Author of nature has so contrived things that the most remarkable rules for preserving life and health are moral duties commanded us; so true is it that godliness has the promises of this life as well as that to come."

Miss Martineau truly observes that "the health of a community is an almost unfailing index of its morals." No one can wonder at this who considers how physical suffering irritates the temper, depresses energy, deadens hope, induces recklessness, and, in short, poisons life. The domestic affections, too, are apt to languish through disappointment in countries where the average of death is very high. There is least marriage in unhealthy countries, and most in healthy ones, other circumstances being equal.

Good and bad health are, therefore, most assuredly, both cause and effect of good and bad morals.

At the same time an over-attention to health, an undue anxiety about our physical condition, is as unwise as the want of due precaution. Addison illustrates the former extreme in his account of a young gentleman of a considerable estate, who had been educated by a tender mother with such a concern for his health that she made him good for nothing. Reading, she quickly found, was bad for his eyes, and writing made his bead ache. He had got by these means a great stock of health, and nothing else; and, if it were a man's business only to live, there could not be a more accomplished young man in the whole country.

It is frequently the case that persons naturally of a sound constitution, on the occurrence of occasional indisposition, become their own doctors, and, by a pernicious treatment of themselves, lay the foundation of chronic ill-health. We learn from Paulus Jovius that Alexander (Jerome), a celebrated cardinal, who died in 1542, ruined his health by the over-care he took of it, being a very bad physician to himself, and making use of too many unnecessary medicines. "He enjoyed," says Jovius, "the purple five years, and might have arrived at a good old age if he had not, through too great solicitude to preserve his health, proved a mad and unsuccessful physician to himself, and corrupted his entrails by improper medicines."

The drugging system has found numerous victims at all times in our country. Thousands have perished from a want of knowledge and caution in this respect. It is easy to show how dangerous the injudicious use of drugs must be. Moisture is indispensable to the beauty of the skin and of the eyes; if the skin becomes dry it also soon becomes harsh, rough, and probably scaly. If the eyes are not properly supplied with tears, to wash the eyeballs at every motion of the eyelids, they will to a certainty become painful and red, independently of their loss of lustre. Now, all the natural and delicate moisture which

INTRODUCTION.

xxiii keeps the skin soft, pliant, and transparent, and the eyes moist and brilliant, is supplied by a sort of filtration from the extremities of those hair-like blood-vessels which carry the transparent part of the blood. If, therefore, these vessels are shut up by the use of drugs, so that they can no longer carry the transparent fluid to moisten the skin and the eyes, the source of all comeliness is destroyed.

"Many things," observes an old writer," are written in our books which seem to the reader to be excellent remedies; but they that make use of them are often deceived, and take for 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 experience 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, and elixirs, which 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 pieces of mechanism, the living human body, is abandoned as a fair subject on which every knave is allowed to try his hand for the benefit of his purse, or well-meaning busybody for the display of his or her vanity.

The rule is exceedingly simple for the guidance of those who, either in their own persons or for their friends, would wish to ward off an attack of impending disease. It is to abstain from everything which might possibly be injurious as food, strong drinks, inordinate exercise, exposure to extremes of temperature, the shock of the passions, &c. A proper knowledge of the most important functions of the body is highly necessary. Our preceding remarks do not apply to this, but to the love for empiricism 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 diseases which, through ignorance, grow upon us, and cause infinite discomfort afterwards.

"Most men," says Dr. Cheyne, "know when they are ill, but very few when they are well; and yet it is most certain that it is easier to preserve health than to recover it, and to prevent diseases than to cure them. Towards the first the means are mostly in our own power; little else is required than to bear

and forbear; but towards the latter the means are perplexed and uncertain."

It is reported of the Emperor Tiberius that he said it was shameful for any man past threescore to reach his hand to a physician to feel his pulse. This was a strong expression, but still it is proper that a man at sixty should have some knowledge of his own pulse, and should be acquainted with his own temper of body in regard to heat and cold; but, above all, should have ascertained by experience what agrees with him and what does not a knowledge easily acquired by a little attention and study.

We quite agree in the following remarks by a writer in one of the medical journals :-" To merchants, and, indeed, to persons engaged in almost any kind of business, a certain amount of physiological information is a matter of prime necessity. The consequences of the want of this knowledge are painfully felt every day by thousands, and there is not, perhaps, a medical man in the kingdom, who is not constantly called to patients who have injured their constitutions and ruined their happiness by over-application to business. Young men start in life with the best intentions in the world. They are industrious, prudent, frugal in their undertakings. They gradually work themselves into a good connection, and then, step by step enlarging their enterprises, and cultivating their business with unremitting, sleepless assiduity, they lay the foundation of a large fortune; but in too many instances it happens that just at this point their health gives way-just when the prize is in view it eludes their grasp. The digestion becomes disordered, the bowels inactive; the head, once so clear and intelligent, becomes the seat of a thousand nameless sensations, indicating a congested condition. It is dull, confused, heavy, preternaturally hot, and incapable of sustained thought. The memory is impaired; sleep flies their pillows; the spirits become depressed, and gaunt images of failure in business, ruined health, and misery of every kind rise up before the distracted vision. Now all this wretchedness might have been foreseen and avoided, for it is the plain result of an infringement of the eternal laws of nature. An amount of exertion has been exacted of the brain which it was never organised to undergo. A slight acquaintance with physiology will teach one so to husband his powers that they be not prematurely exhausted, nor the system ruined by being forced into a temporary intensity of activity which the human mechanism is not adapted to sustain. Of course it is not only merchants and tradesmen who incur the risks and penalties attendant upon incessant mental labour, but clergy men, lawyers, students at school and college, artisans, and persons of every class are all more or less affected; for ignorance of physiology is universal, and the temptation to inordinate application in

these days of competition and rivalry is so great, that only those whose eyes are fully opened to its fatal tendency can refrain from joining in the headlong race after riches, and rest satisfied with the more slow but far surer and safer method of moderate, but steady and continuous gains."

Hufeland, in his celebrated work on the means of preserving health, presents the following picture of a person who might, as far as human calculation extends, be destined for longevity.

"He has a well-proportioned stature, without, however, being too tall, but rather of the middle size, and tolerably thick set. His complexion is not too florid: too much ruddiness, at least in youth, is seldom a sign of longevity. His hair approaches more to the fair than to the black. His skin is strong, but not coarse. His head is not too large. He has prominent veins in the limbs, and his shoulders are rather round than flat. His neck is neither very long nor short. His stomach does not project, and his hands are large, but not too deeply cleft. His foot is rather thick than long, and his inferior limbs are firm and round. He has a broad, arched chest, a strong voice, and the faculty of retaining his breath for a considerable time without inconvenience or difficulty. In general there is a complete harmony of proportion among all parts of the body. His senses are good, but not too delicate. His pulse is slow and regular.

"His stomach is excellent, his appetite good, and digestion easy. The joys of the table in moderation are to him of importance. They increase the vigour of his system, and tune his mind to serenity, while his soul partakes in the pleasure which they communicate. He does not, however, eat merely for the sake of eating, but each meal is an hour of daily festivity-a kind of delight, attended with this advantage among others, that it rather increases than diminishes his riches. He eats slowly, and has not too much thirst. An insatiable thirst is always a sign of rapid self-consumption.

"In general he is serene, loquacious, active, susceptible of joy, love, and hope, but insensible to the impressions of hatred, anger, and avarice. His passions never become too violent. He is fond of employment, particularly calm meditation and agreeable speculations-is an optimist, a friend to nature and to domestic felicity-has no unbounded thirst after the honours or riches of the world, and banishes all unnecessary thoughts of to-morrow."

In the earliest ages we are told that human life was protracted to a very extraordinary length; but how few in these latter times arrive at the period which nature appears evidently to have marked as the limits of man's earthly existence! Man seems designed to rise with the sun, and to spend a large portion of his time in the open air, to inure his body to robust