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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    with ftakes, they have been even in a few minutes reftored to lift*, and to ftrength, by only cutting out a thick and deep turf, and putting the cock’s head and neck into the hole in the frelh Earth, for a quarter or half an hour ; by conlidering that the Earth of even a fmall clofe city Church-yard, takes to pieces and fweetens fo many thoufand dead corpfes—fo many thoufand great facks of corruption, difeafes, and death, and yet itfeif remaining vital, fweet, and falutary ;—by the great love and admiration which I have ever had for ftudying and following the limplicity of Nature, in regard to the prefervation of health, and the cure of difeafes; and above all, by the exprefs declaration of God Himfelf! in His Sacred revealed Word, that Man was originally formed of the Earth ; by the united force and cogency of all thefe facts and confiderations, I was, as it were, infenfibly led, about feven years ago, to ftudy more and more the nature and qualities of this Earth, or that great mafs of matter, upon whofe furface we dwell, and towards the centre of which every thing belonging to it gravitates, through which all the other elements percolate, filter, or pafs,—and in which, with their feminal forms and principles, they iilently and harmonioufly repofe, till awaked and called forth in due feafon, meafure, and proportion by Nature! the unerring and ever-working Artift of God! to form and to animate all mineral, vegetable, and animal fyftems.—SYSTEMS! I call them, for every, even the minuteft feed, is an egg, in which myriads of myriads cf others are wrapt up, nay, every egg is a little world in itfeif; and we may ftili go farther, and fay, that each, and every individual organized thing, in and ow.this Terraqueous Globe, is a com¬ plete and perfect (though to us who fee and know comparatively nothing) an almoft invifible and incompiehenfible epitome or compendium of the whole woild, and perhaps of the whole Univerfe ! Nay, what if 1 fhould go Hill farther, and call the Earth itfeif, a great, an huge Animal, or living Syftem, of an unique fpecies indeed, and inhabited as all other animals are, by millions of myriads of letter animals,—and were we not to the contrary informed, by that Divine Revelation that cannot err nor deceive, I would be inclined to fay, that this huge Animal, the Earth, upon which we crawl, and caper, and fport, and fret,—was created not fix thoufand, but perhaps fixty millions of years ago,—or perhaps from all Eternity ; for I think no very obferving, philofophical, liberal minded, and freely-fpeaking man can doubt, but that every part of this Globe, even the tops of the higheft and moft inland mountains have already, at fome period of time or another, been the bottom of the Sea,—and that in the ordained, and indifpenfibly necefiary courfe of Nature! abftraded from the intervention of the general Deluge, in the days of Noah !—Yes. There certainly has been a time, when this Tfland of Britain was part of the Continent of Europe ; and even when Europe and America were one Continent, undivided by what we now call the Atlantic Ocean. Alas! to poor, blind, peevifh, yet haughty and prefuming men, thefe things feem great or impottible,—but with God! and in the revolution of a very long feries,—I had almoft faid of infinite ages, they are nothing ;—and for the very exiftence, fruitfulncfs, and well being of the earth, and of its inhabitants—thefe revolutions, marine impregnations or incubations, are indifpenfably necefiary. Even in our own time, we have feen old iflands difappear, and new ones arife; and on many parts of our little Ifiand, where one hundred years ago, ftiips rode, the farmer now follows his plough,— and in nutritious waves the golden corn undulates: and the contrary,—that is to fay, over many fields and valleys, where even an hundred years ago, corn grew, and cattle fed,—fiiips now fail, and fifties fwim. But to return tu prove, agreeable to the general analogy of things, that the Earth itfeif is an huge Animal, or living Syftem, and that even the whole Univerfe is one great fyftem or machine, limple in reality, yet to all created Being?, feemingly infinitely complex, or compounded of infinite circulations, and of innumerable wheels within wheels, in the centre of each of which wheels, and in the centre of every atom of which the ftupendous aggregate is compiled, fits, ii.vitibly» a fpark of God’s wifiiom, power, and goodnefs ! harmonioufly and unerringly directing all to one great end or purpofe, by means and ways, though to us totally invifible and inconceivable, yet moft perfectly confident with the * a-
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