The guide to health : designed to promote the health, happiness and longevity of students and all others in sedentary life, especially invalids / by Daniel Newell.

  • Newell, Daniel.
Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The guide to health : designed to promote the health, happiness and longevity of students and all others in sedentary life, especially invalids / by Daniel Newell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    18/85
    SECTION II. OF THE ANCIENTS. The ancient inhabitants of the earth, lived in a state of health, both of body and mind, and arrived at the most advanced age. They were not subject to as many diseases as we are, at the present day. In those early days nature was in her full vig'our, and consequently capa ble of much greater energy ; and her reaction against morbid agents was more powerful. Civilization, while it has polished man or de- prived him of his native rudeness, has caused him to purchase this advantage at the expense of a multitude of diseases, of which the first inhabitants of the world were ignorant, and with which the savages, who only give way to the impulse of nature, are still unacquainted. So- ciety, by extending the circle of our wants, by giving greater influence to our natural passions, and by generating those that are unknown to the man of nature, has become a fruitful and inexhaustible source of calamit}'. I have no place here to touch upon the various causes which have abridged the span of human life; for should 1 write a volume on this subject, 1 must then conclude by saying, that the greater number of diseases and infirmities, which assail us from all sources do not essentially depend upon our organization ; but that thc}-^ are of our own begetting, because we have infringed the healthy laws of nature, which does not cre- ate diseased beings. We may rest assured that we ourselves ha^ rendered our existence un-