Medicina Gymnastica: or, A treatise concerning the power of exercise, with respect to the animal oeconomy; and the great necessity of it in the cure of several distempersFuller, Francis
Science
Medicina Gymnastica: or, A treatise concerning the power of exercise, with respect to the animal oeconomy; and the great necessity of it in the cure of several distempers
Fuller, Francis
Exercise therapy -- Early works to 1800
Juices, and Poisons become Beneficial, when oppos’d to certain Humours,
why should we not then allow of the same Rule, in the Containing Parts of
the Body? If by a Supine Course of Life, the Nervous parts are weakned
and relax’d, why should we not suppose the contrary way of Living, the
most likely to repair ’em? Since the Vigour of those parts is acquir’d by
Use; they are the Active part of the Man, and not always liable to the
Impressions of the Fluids, for tho’ you invigorate the Blood ever so much
by the most generous Medicines, the Nerves may remain Effete and Languid
notwithstanding; but if the Nervous parts are extended and exercis’d,
the Blood and the Humours must necessarily partake of the Benefit, and
soon discover it by the Increase of their Heat and Motion. There is so
much of a Relative Nature in every thing, that can concern the Health
or Distemperature of the Individual, that there is scarce any thing so
prejudicial, or seemingly Absurd, but may in different Circumstances
prove as Advantageous. The World has lately had full Evidence of the
good Effects of an Intense Cold, equally apply’d to all the Parts of
the Body at once, which Method of Curing would, not many Years agoe,
have been thought very Extravagant, and certainly Destructive. On the
contrary, there are other Cases, where a Warm Bath is only prevalent; and
though some People have suppos’d it to be only a kind of a last Resort,
when other things have been try’d in Vain, yet it is quite otherwise,
it being impossible to remove some Diseases of the Limbs, without an
universal equal Relaxation. Again, quite different from this is the equal
Distribution of a greater Degree of Heat throughout the whole Body, which
is procur’d by Habitual Exercise; in the former Method, the Parts are
relax’d, in this they are strengthned, and in every Respect the Effects
are widely different, tho’ in both ways there is a considerable Encrease
of Heat. But to carry this enquiry farther, there are some Distempers,
and those not altogether so rare neither, in the Cure of which no
Positive Physick of any sort whatsoever, can be serviceable, nothing
but a gradual Substraction of the Cause, an Alterative abstinence, if
I may so speak, being necessary; as there have been some Gouts in some
temperate Persons, of a strong and rank Constitution, which nothing
could remove but a very low Diet, and an entire Abstinence from Flesh;
to them Flesh being as Wine is to others, who Contract that Distemper
by their Excess: and the same Observation holds good likewise in the
~Opthalmia~, and some other Cases of the Eyes, as any that will duly
weigh the Circumstances of some Persons often subject to ’em, will find
Reason to believe, so that some Men are by their Constitutions condemn’d
to an Antidiluvian Diet of Roots and Vegetables, or else to suffer worse
Inconveniences; and when those happen, it is absurd to expect, by the
most Celebrated Remedy to cure the Disease, when the Cause continues.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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