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
prove Digestives, and therefore must be more likely to cause a too great
Agitation in the Blood of these People, than a healing of the Ulcer;
I know it may be here reply’d; that they are very proper to cleanse
the Ulcerated parts of the Lungs in order to their better healing; but
I can’t imagine how it should come about, that there should be such
great need of cleansing the _Ulcuscula_ in a part of so Spongy and
Membranous a Substance as the Lungs, where there can be no redundancy of
Parenchymatous Juices to feed the Ulcers; besides it is to be consider’d,
that the constant Motion of the Lungs, will help so deterge the Ulcerated
part, just as if we should suppose a Man, that has an Ulcer in his Leg,
should be squeezing the Lips of it together all day long, we can’t doubt
but he would by that means work out the _Pus_, the Slough, and all the
mispurities of the Sore, and in like manner, the Heaving and Subsiding of
the Lungs will hinder any thing from Bedding or Lodging it self long in
a part that is really Ulcerated. And alass! here is the grand difficulty
in a way to a Cure, we can’t easily bring so arid a Substance, as that of
the Lungs to unite, when lacerated, because of its continual Motion; so
that there is all the reason in the World, for us to heap in only healing
Medicines, strictly taken, without any thing that may prove in the least
stimulating. Therefore, wherever Balsamicks have done any great good; I
cannot think it has been any other way, than by deriving of the Acrimony
from the Blood, and not by immediately healing the Part affected; so
that tho’ these are Noble Medicines in Colicks and Simple Affects of the
Stomach, where the State of the Blood is quite different, yet here they
are too Generous. They are like the Sword of a Gyant, in the Hands of
a Dwarf, that will not help but Oppress. And as for the Oily Medicines,
which may be call’d a sort of milder and Artificial _Balsamicks_, we
ought to consider, that the Blood is Replenish’d with a better Oyl than
any we can immediately supply it with; I mean the Fat, which to the
quantity of a Pint at least is continually passing, into, and out of the
Blood: And yet in this Ill Habit of Body it wasts daily, and does not
Unite with the other Fluids as in a state of Health. What then can we do
by the Poor Addition of a few Drachms of Unctuous Stuff, which after it
has pass’d the Stomach enters the Blood, to the quantify of a few Grains,
and does not the least good, in Reparation for the unpleasantness in the
Taking, and the Uneasiness it sometimes causes in the Stomach of the
Sick Person?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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