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
It is absolutely impossible to enjoy health, where the perspiration is
not duly carried on; but that can never be the case where exercise is
neglected. When the matter which ought to be thrown off by perspiration
is retained in the body, it vitiates the humours, and occasions the
gout, fevers, rheumatism, &c. Exercise alone would prevent many of those
diseases which cannot be cured, and would remove others where medicine
proves ineffectual.
A late author[33], in his excellent treatise on health, says, that the
weak and valetudinary ought to make exercise a part of their religion.
We would recommend this, not only to the weak and valetudinary, but to
all whose business does not oblige them to take sufficient exercise, as
sedentary artificers[34], shop-keepers, studious persons, &c. Such ought
to use exercise as regularly as they take food. This might generally be
done without any interruption to business or real loss of time.
No piece of indolence hurts the health more than the modern custom of
lying a-bed too long in a morning. This is the general practice in great
towns. The inhabitants of cities seldom rise before eight or nine
o’clock; but the morning is undoubtedly the best time for exercise,
while the stomach is empty, and the body refreshed with sleep. Besides,
the morning air braces and strengthens the nerves, and, in some measure,
answers the purpose of a cold bath. Let any one who has been accustomed
to lie a-bed till eight or nine o’clock, rise by six or seven, spend a
couple of hours in walking, riding, or any active diversion without
doors, and he will find his spirits cheerful and serene through the day,
his appetite keen, and his body braced and strengthened. Custom soon
renders early rising agreeable, and nothing contributes more to the
preservation of health.
The inactive are continually complaining of pains of the stomach,
flatulencies, indigestions, &c. These complaints, which pave the way to
many others, are not to be removed by medicines. They can only be cured
by a vigorous course of exercise, to which indeed they seldom fail to
yield.
Exercise, if possible, ought always to be taken in the open air. When
that cannot be done, various methods may be contrived for exercising the
body within doors, as the dumb bell, dancing, fencing, &c. It is not
necessary to adhere strictly to any particular kind of exercise. The
best way is to take them by turns, and to use that longest which is most
suitable to the strength and constitution. Those kinds of exercise which
give action to most of the bodily organs, are always to be preferred, as
walking, running, riding, digging, swimming, and such like.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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