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
Thus I have consider’d how the Use of Moderate Riding will conduce to
the conveying off the Subject matter of the Disease. The next Indication
is the Strengthning the Tone of the Lungs and Muscular Parts, which in
this Distemper grow Flaccid, I might add of the Stomach too, but that
we can help that Bowel by many excellent Internal Remedies. Now I would
fain know of any Man, how we can reach the Flaccidity of the Lungs, by
Internal means, till the Distemperature of the Blood is remov’d, when it
will go off in Course, but would be done much sooner, if we assisted both
the Solids and Fluids at the same time; now that the very Lungs itself
may appear, not to be out of the reach of a Habit of Exercise, let any
one consider the strength of that Part, which Divers acquire by frequent
Diving; or to come nearer to our Purpose, take any two Men equally, us’d
to Hard Labour, of equal strength as near as we can guess whereof one has
accustom’d himself to Running, the other never done so, all the World
knows that the Practis’d Footman shall Run a great deal farther, and much
faster than the other can do: Tho’ in the Common Sense of the Expression,
this latter has a Clear Wind as we say, and is in perfect Health; which
invincibly proves, that the Lungs tho’ a Bowel, are capable of a Habit,
and that with a Proportional Allowance, the gentle, easie Exercise, of
Riding, must introduce a New Habit, into the Lungs of a Consumptive
Person, and so recover the Tone of that Bowel.
I know it will be reply’d here, that _Balsamick_ and healing Medicines
are suppos’d to strengthen the Parts they are directed to, that they are
generous Medicines, of fine Parts, and consequently fitted to Communicate
a firmness, a Spring to the Nervous and Membranous Parts of the Lungs;
and if it could be prov’d that they did Heal so much as they have been
pretended to do; I would readily allow they did Strengthen those Parts,
but I have had some considerable Opportunity, to observe the Use of those
Medicines, and I never could find that if Alteratives fail’d, Balsamicks
would do any great good; that is, taken strictly as Balsamicks, upon a
Healing Intention. I doubt not, but in the beginning of the Distemper, as
Alteratives they may be of Service, especially the milder sort; by the
pleasant sensation they Create, and the Consent of the Parts they will
give present Abatement of the Cough, and when brought into the Blood,
may by Promoting a _Diurisis_, or by precipitating some of the Acrimony,
help to carry off the Cause of the Cough, after the Alterative way, but
that when there is any Ulceration in the Lungs, and the Blood is loaded
with Hot and fretting Particles, they should then heal so much, I cannot
conceive. If we will but give our selves leave to examine a little
closely how they act, when externally apply’d to a Sore, we shall not
perhaps find, that they are all of ’em such immediate Healers; some of
’em are too fine and Stimulating to be us’d as Eupoloticks, but rather
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