Obesity, or Excessive Corpulence: The Various Causes and the Rational Means of CureDancel, J.-F. (Jean-François)
Science
Obesity, or Excessive Corpulence: The Various Causes and the Rational Means of Cure
Dancel, J.-F. (Jean-François)
Obesity; Weight loss
The system I have introduced progresses, and, as some might say, works
wonders, and effects cures in France, in England, in Belgium, in
Austria, in Russia, in Turkey, in Africa; and in almost every instance,
my patients are persons occupying prominent positions--magistrates,
state authorities, general officers, or men of wealth, who have
enjoyed the advantages of a good education, and are able to judge of
and appreciate the merits of my mode of treatment. The judgment of
such a tribunal should convince the incredulous. This is no matter of
faith. I lay claim to the possession of no revelation, which is not
to be explained, or which is to rest solely upon my assertion. I do
not say that my discovery is a mystery, and that it is your part to
believe in it. Under such circumstances, disbelief would not astonish
me, notwithstanding all the cases of cure brought forward; but when
the nutrition of the body is explained in accordance with the laws of
nature, when it is shewn to be in conformity with the well understood
laws of chemistry, and that facts are cited, in reference both to man
and the lower animals, in support of these phenomena, I confess that
opposition to this system excites my astonishment. Physicians cannot by
any possibility advance sufficient reasons against a system which, when
once explained, must appear self-evident to every one.
Another fact in support of this system must be submitted to my readers.
What would a medical man say if I should venture the following piece
of advice: You have a horse you wish to dispose of. He is a good
beast, and travels well, but he is thin. If he were fatter, he would
look better, and you could sell him to greater advantage. Make him
fat; and if, in order to do this, I advised him to give his horse a
double allowance of oats, he would only laugh at me. He would say; why,
everybody knows that if you wish to fatten a horse, the best way is to
give him, in addition to an abundance of hay, bran, mixed with plenty
of water, or in other words, bran mashes; or the horse may be sent to
pasture, to live upon grass, which is composed principally of water and
a small proportion of ligneous matter. Under such circumstances, the
horse will make fat, and his form will become more round and plump;
but if, when he was thin, he was able to travel thirty miles without
sweating and without fatigue, now that he is fat he will scarcely be
able to go five without being covered with sweat, and without shewing
manifest signs of fatigue. When thin, he was a good horse; but being
fat, he has lost his best qualities, which can be restored only by
feeding him again upon less bulky food, with a due allowance of oats,
and a small proportion of water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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