Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 5, May 1849Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 5, May 1849
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
The whole body of family physicians, and nurses of the body politic,
have their hands full, and the multifarious practice sets at naught the
popular idea of perfection, as a necessary consequence. It is gratifying
to know, however, that in the absence of consistent and regular
treatment, the popular remedy applied in its early stages is conducive
to longevity and temperance—those who suffer severely from the fever
here, and become exceedingly dry in consequence, are cured effectually
by GOING AROUND THE HORN. Lying water-logged under the
Tropics being rather a different thing from “getting up a breeze” at
home, and being eminently suggestive of sobriety of thought, and of
taking their cue from facts, and not from “Q Brandy” continually. Young
gentlemen whose systems were here so relaxed, that nothing but taking a
horn two or three times before dinner could impart to them sufficient
energy to attend to out-of-door business, go around it, and give it a
wide berth in the hot latitudes—shut their ears to all hints about the
nervous system, and with a hardihood and self command, acquired within
view of sharks and yellow fever, brave danger without stimulus, and
fatigue without “having a gale.”
Under the tropics, too, young men, who have at home found no difficulty
in getting three sheets in the wind, have rather an aerial difficulty in
getting a flowing sail, and with plenty of steam on board, in the
absence of propellers, decline all invitation to steam it, “to drive
dull care away”—the trouble greatest, for the time, being to get away
themselves. The boys who often declared in the hours of midnight that
they were the particular individuals who feared no noise, and who would
not go home till morning, wish themselves very quietly dozing there, and
are perfectly subdued and indolent under the Equator in a three days’
calm, and do not insist upon “three more—and again,” so that they have
an opportunity of candid inquiry and sober reflection, which may be
serviceable—promotive of a thirst for cold water, and an abhorrence of
dark brandy, in a “_sun_ny” clime. We do not see why something cannot be
done for Temperance in this way, as well as not. People talk very
disparagingly about “whipping the devil round the stump,” but so that
the old scoundrel gets soundly thrashed at last, I never could see that
the _modus operandi_ is so particularly important.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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