Volume 1

A short treatise on the all-cleansing,--all-healing,--and all-invigorating qualities of the simple earth ... To which are added, a description of ... earth bathing, etc / [James Graham].

  • James Graham
Date:
1790
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A short treatise on the all-cleansing,--all-healing,--and all-invigorating qualities of the simple earth ... To which are added, a description of ... earth bathing, etc / [James Graham]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    SHORT TREATISE, ON THE A]l-Clean(ing5~AIl-Healing,—and All-InvigorJting Qualities OF THE EARTH, When long and repeatedly applied to the Naked Human-Body and Lungs. -----•*!.«-.. . -■ ■' • EVERY perfon who has read attentively the travels and the voyages that have been publifned in Europe, in the courfe of the prefent century ; and efpecially all medical, naval, military, and mercantile men, who have been in the Eaft or Weft Indies, in Africa, or in America, mu ft recoiled: that EARTH-BATHING, , or Animal purification, ftrengthening, or vegetation, that is, immerfing or placing the naked Human Body, up to the chin, or lips, or rather covered up over the head, but leaving the eyes and nofe uncovered for feeing and breathing freely, in frdh dug up Earth, or in the Sand of the Sea-dhore, for three, fix, or twelve hours at one time, and repeatedly, hath been recommended, and actually prac- tifed, with conftctnt, aud with infallible fuccefs, by Sea-faring Foreigners, as well as by the natives of Great Britain, not only as the fpeedieft, and moft infallible cure of the worft and moft hopelefs cafes of the Sea-Scurvy, andDropfy ; but alfo for the certain cure of Leprofies, Rheumatifms, Confumptions in their firft ftages, and of that moft violent, and by all other means moft incurable, and moft fatal of all Spafms, Convulfions or nervous afflidions, to which the Human Body is^liable, called by Phyficians, tatanus & trifmus, or a Ridden and univerfal Spafm, or rigidity of the whole Body, and Limbs, and lock’d Jaw, which fo often happens in the Eaft and Weft Indies; and for the cure, or even fmalleft remifiion of which, the warm Bath, Mercury, Camphor, Mufk, iEther, prodigiouflygreat quantities of Opium, and all other Antifpafmodics, as they are called, generally, or I may fay, always proved ineffedual. By the above fads, which have hitherto in the Books, and by the Travellers alluded to, been but very (lightly mentioned, (their confidering Earth-Bathing, I fuppofe, as a very barbarous and dangerous pradice) by two or three inftances, which I had heard related, with no ftrefs, nor good authority,, of cures being wrought in Britain, in cafes of perfons being tormented and almoft devoured by innumerable fwarms of Lice, in the moft inveterate Scurvies and Itch, and in all other cutaneous Foulnefies, by means of the p*t\zntsjlanding naked, two or three times, for twelve hours each time, up to the lips, in a frefti made hole in the Earth, and with the Earth put in clofe contad with every part of their Body and Limbs;—by refltding on what is well known to every old woman, plough-mar, cock-fighter, and fchool-boy ; namely, that only fmeliing to the Earth, or fol¬ lowing the: plough, are wonderfully refrefiiing, reftorative, and exhilirating, efpe¬ cially in Afthmas, Confumptions, and nervous weakneftes. and waitings and that when a cock has feenfingly been killed by his antagonift cock,-—or by the more lavage and wanton barbarity of men,, throwing and knocking them down A with