Poems on various subjects; with some essays in prose, letters to correspondents, &c., and a treatise on health : dedicated to Charles Boyle, Lord Viscount Dungarvan / By Samuel Bowden.
- Bowden, Samuel, active 1733-1761.
- Date:
- 1754
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Poems on various subjects; with some essays in prose, letters to correspondents, &c., and a treatise on health : dedicated to Charles Boyle, Lord Viscount Dungarvan / By Samuel Bowden. Source: Wellcome Collection.
26/58 (page 358)
![[ 35« ] confine themfelves to little, clofe, wainfcotted rooms, are fot this reafon apt to be unhealthy ; fubjedt to palpitations, nervous oppreffions, and liable to take cold, home modern rooms are, in a leffer degree, like exhaujled receivers -y and was it not tor the be¬ nefit of a chimney, thofe who indulge to an inactive fedentary life, would be in great danger ot fuffo- cauon. It is certain, that thofe who are moft ex¬ pos’d to the air, can beft bear the impreffions of it. Air is the grand inftrument and engine ot refpiration ; and it depends very much on the weight, and pref- fure of this circumambient body, whether we are tick, or well, gay or gloomy, according to the dif¬ ferent effedts of its rarefadtion, and elafticity ; or its laxity, and condenfation. But without entering into the philofophy, and the wonderful texture, and pro- pertys of this invifible fluid, the effedts of it are obvious, and apparent, by the health, vigour, and long lives of peafants, fhepherds, carriers, and others who are moft expos’d to it, in all its varietys. Thefe obfervations, with regard to air, exercife, &c. may be confirmed by many inftances of longevity ; and the examples of thofe who have run out the longeft races, with health, and vigour; who commonly lived in rural abodes, mountains, and defarts, with great temperance, exercife, and fimplicity of diet: Such as the BritijhDruids y thePat riarch si the Indian Brack- mans, the primitive Fathers and Hermits, ainongft whom](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30360535_0026.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)