Hydropathy for the people : with plain observations on drugs, diet, water, air, and exercise / by William Horsell ; with notes and observations by R.T. Trall.

  • William Horsell
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hydropathy for the people : with plain observations on drugs, diet, water, air, and exercise / by William Horsell ; with notes and observations by R.T. Trall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    increased, undergoes a progressive decrease; so that a child of fourteen cannot be expected to live beyond thirty-seven years and five months ; a man of thirty, twenty-eight years more; and in the last place, a man of eighty-four, but one year more. Such is the result of observation and of calcula- tions on the different degrees of probabilities of human life, by Halley, Kresbroom, Wargentin, Buffon, etc., etc. As the popular opinion cannot therefore be founded on the above, or on any well-founded statements of a similar description, we must look for its basis some where else. And it is likely we shall find it resulting from a misunderstanding of the 10th verse of the 90th Psalm, which says, The days of our years are three- score years and ten, and if by reason of strength they be four-score years, yet is there strength, labor, and sorrow, for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Let the reader observe, that rightly to understand an author, we must consider the circumstances under which he wrote, and also, if possible, the general drift of his observations and reasonings. It may, therefore, be proper to observe, that this Psalm is generally admitted to have been written by Moses, and that it has special reference to the sentence passed upon Israel in the wilderness, for their unbelief, murmuring, and rebellion against the Lord. The sentence declared that their carcasses should fall in the wilder- ness—that they should be wasted by a series of miseries for thirty-eight years together, until they were all destroyed; ex- cepting Joshua and Caleb, in whom was found another spirit, and who followed the Lord fully. Let us also carefully ob- serve, that Moses is not speaking of the lives of men in gen- eral, but merely adverting to an awful fact, which was actually taking place at that time among the rebellious Israelites in the great and terrible wilderness. That he was not speaking of the lives of men generally, may be inferred from the fact, that he, as well as many of his brethren, lived to considerably more than even ninety years. Moreover, as he complains of the people being cut off through the displeasure of God, it is reasonable to suppose that he was not alluding to the period
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