Hydropathic aphorisms : the simple treatment of disease contrasted with medicinal abuses, or, The why and wherefore of the water cure / by John Balbirnie.

  • John Balbirnie
Date:
[1856]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hydropathic aphorisms : the simple treatment of disease contrasted with medicinal abuses, or, The why and wherefore of the water cure / by John Balbirnie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    294/300 (page 282)
    catiou are calculated to excrei.se but a very few of the powers of the mind. Disorders of the digestive functions are the root of all other bodily ailments -perhaps of a great mnjority of mental maladies. An imperfect or vitiated chyle will afford an unwholesome nutrition. Abnormal or arrested secretions and excretions will be the result. The nervous system is next implicated in the chain of morbid action : the ranin- spring of the macliine will thus get relaxed or unwound : and the effect will, in its turn, become a cause. • All the functions will participate in the impairment of the nervous centres— the supply of nervous stimulus to all will bo diminished or vitiated. If one organ is unduly exercised, it absorbs a dispro- portionate amount of tlie nervous energy, and de))rives the others of their own share : the tone of tlie robbed organs is diminished—their functions are weakened. Intense appli- cation ofndud, for example, concentrates tlie nervous energy on the brain, at the expense of the trunk and extremities— proving liow unfavourable diminished nervous influence is to tlie general health. Irregular, deficient, or inordinate exer- cise of the mental or bodily powers destroys the equilibrium tliat should be maintained between them, and induces weak- ness, suftering, disease. CXX. Bodily energy is requisite for the proper culture of the mental faculties of youth. Education is not advanced according to the time devoted to it, nor to the earnestness of the application. Forced efforts at learning both injure the health and fail of their end. Varied mental and bodily effort—the alternation of labour aiul relaxation—])ursuits calculated to develope the various faculties, and commensu- rate in importance with tlie destiny they prepare for—will alike conduce to vigour of body and energy of niiiul. Tlie brain shares the benefit of inipi-oved health. Tlie active exercise of the intellect and of the moral feelings becomes, ill its turn, a necessary condition to the due performance of the functions of the nervous system. CXXI. The education of the intellectual and moral powers must go hand in hand. But as the perceptive faculties are developed before the reiiective, the moral senti- ments and affections must be first cultivated. If these be neglected, it will be in vain afterwards to address the morale