A manual of practical hygiene / by Edmund A. Parkes ; edited by F.S.B. Francois de Chaumont.

Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of practical hygiene / by Edmund A. Parkes ; edited by F.S.B. Francois de Chaumont. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    influenced by bodily conditions. For a perfect system of hygiene we must train the body, the intellect, and the moral faculties in a perfect and balanced order. But is such a system possible ? Is there, or will there ever be, such an art, or is the belief that there will be, one of those dreams which breathe a blind hope into us, a hope born only of our longings, and destined to die of our experience 1 And, indeed, when we look around us and consider the condition of the world—the abundance of life, its appalling waste; the wonderful contrivances of the animal king- dom, the apparent indifference with which they are trampled under foot; the gift of mind, its awful perversion and alienations; and when, especially, we note the condition of the human race, and consider what it apparently might be, and what it is : its marvellous endowments and lofty powers; its ten-ible sufferings and abasement; its capacity for happiness, and its cup of son-ow; the boon of glowing health, and the thousand diseases and painful deaths,—he must indeed be gifted with sublime endurance or undying faith who can still believe that out of this chaos order can come, or out of this suffering happiness and health. Whether the world is ever to see such a consummation no man can say; but as ages roll on hope does in some measure grow. In the midst of all our weaknesses, and all our many errors, we are certainly gaining know- ledge, and that knowledge tells us, in no doubtful terms, that the fate of man is in his own hands. It is undoubtedly true that we can, even now, literally choose between health or disease; not, perhaps, always individually, for the sins of oui- fathers may be visited upon us, or the customs of our life and the chains of our civilisation and social customs may gall us, or even our fellow-men may deny us health, or the knowledge which leads to health. But, as a race, man holds his own destiny, and can choose between good and evil; and as time um-oUs the scheme of the world it is not too much to hope that the choice will be for good. Looking only to the part of hygiene which concerns the physician, a per- fect system of rules of health would be best arranged in an orderly series of this kind. The rules would commence with the regulation of the mother's health while bearing her child, so that the growth of the new being should be as perfect as possible. Then, after birth, the rules (different for each sex at certain times) would embrace three epochs : ^ of growth (including infancy and youth); of maturity, when for many years the body remains apparently 1 First expressly noted by Galen.