The laws of health / by W.H. Corfield.

  • William Henry Corfield
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The laws of health / by W.H. Corfield. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    mining causes are those which actually bring about the disease. Thus, if a big man stands up to be shot at in a duel, he is more likely to be hit, other things being equal, than a small one; and so his size is a predisposing cause in favour of his being killed. If he is killed, it is the bullet which is the determining cause. So, too, with hereditary tendencies. For in- stance, if a man is consumptive, his children are said to be predisposed to consumption ; and the fact that the father is consumptive is a predisposing cause, if any of his children become so also. The most important predisposing causes of disease will be described in the next few pages. § 2. Constitution.—This is the resultant of all the physiological actions of the system, such as the power of digestion and of circulation, the capacity of the lungs, the muscular strength, and many others. It is said to be strong when all these actions are well per- formed, and weak when one or more of them is defec- tive. A strong constitution may be converted into a weak one by bad habits, and conversely a weak one may often be much strengthened by careful attention to the laws of health. The most remarkable example of this on record is perhaps the case of Luigi Cornaro, a Venetian nobleman, who—although originally, as he tells us, of a weak constitution, which he still further damaged by indulging in various kinds of excesses until he was nearly forty years of age,—by persisting in the observance of a temperate course of living, not only recovered a perfect state of health, but wrote a treatise entitled ‘ Sure and certain Methods of obtain- ing a Long and Healthful Life,’ when he was eighty-
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