Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / [Amariah Brigham].

  • Amariah Brigham
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / [Amariah Brigham]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    vigour of body and mind. Children, especially, should be well nourished. Good diet is an essential part of good education. The method of rearing children which some propose, and which, I fear, some adopt, of re- stricting them to very light food that contains but little nourishment,is very reprehensible. Every farmer knows that such a course would stint and ruin his cattle, and it will as assuredly have such an effect on children. The way to make children thrive, and do well, is to give them plenty of good food, and keep their minds free from anxiety and chagrin. Insufficient nutriment weakens the mind as well as the body. Many writers place poor diet at the head of the causes that weaken attention and debilitate all the faculties of the mind. Thus, we often see that disease which wastes the body, enfeebles the mind also, though this is not always the case; for some- times the brain does not diminish as the other parts of the body do,’O'* But to return to the causes of dyspepsia. We do not find this disease prevalent in countries where the people eat most enormously. Travellers in Siberia say, that the people there often eat forty pounds of food in one day. Admiral Saritchaff saw a Siberian 104 We often see persons in conmmpUon exhibit clear and pon'- erful intellects j but, according to the researches of M. Desmoulins, the brain does not decrease in bulk or weight in this and many other chronic diseases.—Andral’s Pathological Ayiatomy.—^The constitu- tional irritation which exists in comumption, may commuiiicato itself to the brain, and stimulate that viscus, so as to enable it to act powerfully, notwithstanding the general wa.iting of the system. In Inanition, where no disease exists to stimulate the brain, the mental powers are always impaired.—U. M.]