Observations on the preservation of health in infancy, youth, manhood and age. With a brief account of the principal British and continental spas and watering places / [John Harrison Curtis].

  • Curtis, John Harrison, 1778-approximately 1860
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the preservation of health in infancy, youth, manhood and age. With a brief account of the principal British and continental spas and watering places / [John Harrison Curtis]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and autumn. “ It is generally very unnecessary,” says Dr. Billing, “ and worse than useless, to send patients away from their friends, often at an enormous inconve- nience. If they are consumptive, they will thus die in exile ; and if not, they may be cured at home.” The weekly cessation from the toils of business, which is generally observed in Christian countries on the first day of the week, is a practice at least as conducive to the welfare of the body as of the soul; and one which will be more inviolably kept, when men become better acquainted with the conditions on which their health de- pends. Nothing could be more inexpedient, as regards merely the present interests of mankind, than the aban- donment of this practice, viewing it as a matter of politi- cal economy ; for there can be no doubt that the capacity for labour is increased by occasional rest from it; and that if every day in the year were devoted to labour, the pro- duce of that labour would be less than it is at present. If the time thus rescued from labour were made the best possible use of, how much might it not effect for the mental and bodily improvement of mankind! It affords an opportunity for intellectual, moral, and phy- sical training, which has not yet been turned to the best, advantage. Of the miscellaneous subjects to which we are now to direct our attention, the first that claims it, from its im- portant influence upon health and longevity, is marriage, in reference to which Thomson, in a well-known passage, has said; “ But happy they — the happiest of their kind — Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend.” That the poet is right, there can be no doubt. The matri- monial state, when entered into at the proper time and