Motion-life, or, The demon of the age and means of its exorcism / by H. Halsted.

  • Halsted, H.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Motion-life, or, The demon of the age and means of its exorcism / by H. Halsted. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    primary cause for the developement of disease, that there can be one grand panacea, one general remedy, one particular course of treatment, which will remove all kind^ or classes of diflScul- ties, or heal every malady to which the human frame is liable. Going back to nature once more, as the guide.by which, and the source from which, all our observations are to be drawn, it is found that when left alone to her own restorative measures, she does not always adopt the same course in throwing off dis- ease. At one time the bowels are made the great evacuent by which the accumulated and poisonous matter is disposed of; at another the kidneys ; and still another the skin; and at times, all these operate together. Again the ** resolution of inflam- mation, the exudation and organization of lymph on inflamed surfaces, the process of suppuration and sloughing, the function of absorption, and the increase of absorption from pressure, are circumstances which tend to the preservation of life, and are processes dependent *' on very different principles or laws of the animal economy.'' As one particular course is not always followed by nature, neither will one remedy alone, or one par- ticular plan of treatment under all circumstances, be found adequate to effectually aid and assist her efforts to overcome disease. deduces itself, by sanitary necessity from the skin. * * * I do think that loss of faith and the other inward graces is the tap-root of bodily sickness; and that fears, apathies, hatreds and self-seekings are the sowers who go forth to sow poison through our frames. * ^ * * The conception of 'public health implies the reconstruction of all the circum- stances with which the organism is surrounded, upon the model of its nat- ural and spiritual wants; and the presumption is, that many diseases and vices will die, which circumstances, and not the choice of individua]?, have engendered. This result itself, however, can only run pari passu Avith the increase of private virtue; and hence, as we said before, the throne to which the whole problem perpetually refers itself, is the regeneration of man.— After any given circumstantial operation has been effected, an intractable mass of evil will still be left, which requires new circumstances of cure, originated by new physicians of good. * ^ * ^ The 1)est possible circumstances mean the best possible brain and heart, sent by God to the occasion.— Willdnson.