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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    instances of very long life. Even in Holland, people may be- come old; though this is not often the case, as few live there to the age of 100 years. On the whole, then, it will be found to be an incontrovertible fact, that the more a man follows and is obedient to those law& which the all-wise Ruler of the universe has established for his guidance, the longer will he live, other things being equal \ and, though this is a general law, it is not so much the effect of cKmate as the mode of living. In the same districts, there- fore, as long as the inhabitants lead a temperate life, they will attain to old age 'r but as soon as they become highly civilized, and by these means sink into luxury, dissipation, and corrup- tion, which is commonly the case, their health will suffer, and their lives be shortened. In the course of nine years' advo- cacy of the temperance eause, we have often met with objec- tions to our views of intemperance in eating and drinking being destructive of health and longevity; and we are ready to ad- mit that there are exceptions to the rule; but they are so rare as to be only exceptions, and not the rule. Yet, we are cer- tain, had those persons who, by more than usually good con- stitutions, have lived to seventy or eighty years, adopted a ra- tional mode of living, they would have been honored with ranking with our Jenkinses, Parrs, and Cams 'r and instead of being distinguished, in their latter days-, by palsied limbs, by racking pains, an intellect betokening a state of dotage, and, as Bishop Berkely observes, being set up as the devil's decoys,* to draw in proselytes, they would have sunk into the grave as into a sweet repose, at the close of a long, useful, and happy * Dr. Cheyne mentions one of these decoys, who had drank from two» to four bottles of wine every day, for fifty years, and boasted that he was» as hale and hearty as ever. Pray, remarked a bystander, where are your boon companions? Ah! he quickly replied, that's another question: if the truth may bo told, I have buried three entire generation* of them. And, as Dr. Beddoes observes, Neither do all who are ex- posed to its contagion, catch the plague; and yet is the hazard sufficient to induce every man in his sober senses [when is the drunkard in his ?] to keep out of the way of infection*
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