The consumptive's guide to health, or, the invalid's five questions, and the doctor's five answers ; a comprehensive practical treatise on pulmonary consumption ... addressed in popular language to non-medical readers, and incidentally to physicians and students / by J. Hamilton Potter, M.D.
- Potter, J. Hamilton.
- Date:
- 1852
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The consumptive's guide to health, or, the invalid's five questions, and the doctor's five answers ; a comprehensive practical treatise on pulmonary consumption ... addressed in popular language to non-medical readers, and incidentally to physicians and students / by J. Hamilton Potter, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
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![The sources from ■which we derive morbid ex- citement are present to every man's understanding and conscience. Let men think over their secret and besetting sins, their ruling passions, their moving incentives, and they will find that some of the follies or vices which I shall presently enumerate, compose a vis a tergo, which is hurrying them on to debility, disorganization, disease, .and death. The first source of this morbid excitement which I shall remind the reader of, is the preaching and hearing of fiery, electrifying, sulphur-bolt sermons ; a kind of artillery, gotten up to pamper morbid tastes, throw people into akind of trance, and frighten the sensitive and nervous into a fold, into which we should rather be led by the silken cords of heavenly persuasion. People will flock to and crowd a church where the best music is to be heard, or where the preacher entertains his auditors with novelty, elo- quence, or ranting; or where he harrows the soul with frightful chasms and precipices, across which God's wrath is pictured to roll in mountains of flame and smoke, ready to receive the unbending sinner, who, at that moment, is poised, and tottering upon the very brink! A few stragglers only surround the man of God. who takes the great Model for his guide and repeats, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. ]STovel reading is doubtless also one of the princi- pal sources of morbid excitement for the young; the other evils attending it are, waste of time, distaste and neglect of useful books and employments, aspiration to become a hero or heroine, and live over just such scenes ; having respect and admiration for lofty cha- racters only; and despising plain, common-place peo- ple and things; giving one a false estimate of the world, and leading him or her to think themselves fitted to be just such characters; encouraging the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21007767_0082.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
