Advice to the people in general, with regard to their healthTissot, S. A. D. (Samuel Auguste David)
Science
Advice to the people in general, with regard to their health
Tissot, S. A. D. (Samuel Auguste David)
Hygiene -- Handbooks, manuals, etc. -- Early works to 1800; Medicine, Popular -- Early works to 1800
Idleness of itself weakens them, and disposes them to those Debauches,
which enfeeble them still more. They never have more than a few
Children, and these sickly; such as have not Strength to cultivate the
Ground; or who, being brought up in Cities, have an Aversion to the
Country.
Even those among them who are more prudent, who preserve their Morals,
and make some Savings, being accustomed to a City Life, and dreading the
Labour of a Country one (of the Regulation of which they are also
ignorant) chuse to become little Merchants, or Tradesmen; and this must
be a Drawback from Population, as any Number of Labourers beget more
Children than an equal Number of Citizens; and also by Reason, that out
of any given Number, more Children die in Cities, than in the Country.
The same Evils also prevail, with Regard to female Servants. After ten
or twelve Years Servitude, the Maid-Servants in Cities cannot acquit
themselves as good Country Servants: and such of them as chuse this
Condition, quickly fail under that Kind or Quantity of Work, for which
they are no longer constituted. Should we see a Woman married in the
Country, a Year after leaving Town, it is easy to observe, how much that
Way of living in the Country has broke her. Frequently their first
Child-bed, in which Term they have not all the Attendance their Delicacy
demands, proves the Loss of their Health; they remain in a State of
Languor, of Feebleness, and of Decay: they have no more Children; and
this renders their Husbands unuseful towards the Population of the
State.
Abortions, Infants carried out of their Country after a concealed
Pregnancy, and the Impossibility of their getting Husbands afterwards,
are frequently the Effects of their Libertinage.
It is to be apprehended too these bad Effects are rather increasing with
us; since, either for want of sufficient Numbers, or from oeconomical
Views, it has become a Custom, instead of Women Servants, to employ
Children, whose Manners and whole Constitutions are not yet formed; and
who are ruined in the same Manner, by their Residence in Town, by their
Laziness, by bad Examples, and bad Company.
Doubtless much remains still unsaid on these important Heads; but
besides my Intention not to swell this Treatise immoderately, and the
many Avocations, which prevent me from launching too far into what may
be less within the Bounds of Medicine, I should be fearful of digressing
too far from my Subject. What I have hitherto said however, I think
cannot be impertinent to it; since in giving Advice to the People, with
Regard to their Health, it was necessary to display to them the Causes
that impaired it: though what I might be able to add further on this
Head, would probably be thought more remote from the Subject.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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