Domestic medicine : $b or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases by regimen and simple medicines. With an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitionersBuchan, William
Science
Domestic medicine : $b or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases by regimen and simple medicines. With an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitioners
Buchan, William
Medicine, Popular -- Early works to 1800
All sedentary artificers ought to pay the most religious regard to
cleanliness. Both their situation and occupations render this highly
necessary. Nothing would contribute more to preserve their health, than
a strict attention to it; and such of them as neglect it, not only run
the hazard of losing health, but of becoming a nuisance to their
neighbours.
Sedentary people ought to avoid food that is windy, or hard of
digestion, and should pay the strictest regard to sobriety. A person who
works hard without doors will soon throw off a debauch; but one who sits
has by no means an equal chance. Hence it often happens, that sedentary
people are seized with fevers after hard drinking. When such persons
feel their spirits low, instead of running to the tavern for relief,
they should ride, or walk in the fields. This would remove the complaint
more effectually than strong liquor, and would never hurt the
constitution.
Instead of multiplying rules for preserving the health of the sedentary,
we shall recommend to them the following general plan, viz. That every
person who follows a sedentary employment should cultivate a piece of
ground with his own hands. This he might dig, plant, sow, and weed at
leisure hours, so as to make it both an exercise and amusement, while it
produced many of the necessaries of life. After working an hour in a
garden, a man will return with more keenness to his employment within
doors, than if he had been all the while idle.
Labouring the ground is every way conducive to health. It not only gives
exercise to every part of the body, but the very smell of the earth and
fresh herbs revives and cheers the spirits, whilst the perpetual
prospect of something coming to maturity, delights and entertains the
mind. We are so formed as to be always pleased with somewhat in
prospect, however distant or however trivial. Hence the happiness that
most men feel in planting, sowing, building, &c. These seem to have been
the chief employments of the more early ages: and, when kings and
conquerors cultivated the ground, there is reason to believe that they
knew as well wherein true happiness consisted as we do.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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