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
Besides these two main Indications, there is something more to be
consider’d in the Cure of the Consumption; and that is, how we may
obviate the Moisture of the Air; which is a very troublesome Enemy to
Consumptive People, of what Constitution soever, who dare not make use
of Generous Liquors to fence against it; for that Practice would be
prejudicial upon another Account: Now what can be more Natural in this
Case, than the raising the Spirits to resist this Moisture, by a gentle
Motion of the whole Body, which at the same time, causes a greater
Degree of Heat, and that equally diffus’d all over the Body, which must
needs rarify in some measure, the moist Air, and besides, make the hot
and acrimonious Particles in the Blood, supply the place of warm Internal
Medicines, which in another Person would have been proper to have been
given, to oppose the Moisture of the Air? Now this is much the same,
that the Change of Air can effect in the Body of a Sick Person, for ’tis
the equal Influence, the universal moderate Rarefaction of a warm Air,
that makes it so beneficial, and if we will cast in the benefit of the
Tension, which is caus’d by moderate Riding, together with the Equality
of the Heat, it will appear to be very little short of what is usually
expected from a Journey into a Foreign Air, and I could here give an
Instance of a Gentleman, who, when he was in the South of _France_,
found but little Relief, any longer than when he was on Horse-back;
and who after his return to _England_, found that Riding supported him
as much, as the Change of Air; So that upon the Consideration of the
equal promoting of the insensible Perspiration, and the Benefit, which
at the same time accrues to the Solid Parts, this Exercise which I have
so much insisted on, may be allow’d to be almost, if not altogether, an
Equivalent to a Warmer Climate.
_Lastly_, I shall urge but this one more Reason for this Exercise, which
is not taken from a Natural, but a Prudential Consideration, from the
particular Humour of most People in this Distemper, who are strangely
inclin’d to think themselves in no great Danger, even tho’ the Distemper
is far advanc’d; they don’t love to be told the Truth, tho’ it is ever
so necessary; but an honest Physician is to them, as _Micaiah_ was to
_Ahab_, he never has any thing good to say of ’em; they think they are
strong enough in the Main; they’ll tell ye, they should be as well as
ever, if their Scurvey Cough, or the weight on their Breast was but
remov’d: Now the Genius of the Sick must be consider’d, and these People
who have so good an Opinion of themselves, may in some Sense be indulg’d
and wrought upon, to exert their Imaginary Strength in Gentle Riding, and
then they may perhaps come to enjoy that which is real.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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