Maxims on the preservation of health, and the prevention of diseases : selected from the best authorities : with The way to wealth from Dr. Franklin / from Lee & Co.'s Patent and Family Medicine Store, No. 33, Market-Street, Baltimore.

Date:
[1803?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Maxims on the preservation of health, and the prevention of diseases : selected from the best authorities : with The way to wealth from Dr. Franklin / from Lee & Co.'s Patent and Family Medicine Store, No. 33, Market-Street, Baltimore. 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.)

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    sion of some imaginary evil. From these resources proceed most of the miseries of mankind. Certainly man was never intended to be idle. Inactivity frustrates the very design of his creation : whereas an active life is the best guardian of virtue, and the greatest preservative of health. Sleep, as well as diet, ought to be duly regulated. Too little sleep weakens the nerves, exhausts the spirits, and occasions diseases ; and too much renders the mind dull,. the body gross, and disposes to apoplexies, lethargies, and other complaints of a similar nature. The giddy practice of throwing aside our winter clothes too curly in the spring, and that of exposing our bodies when overheated to sudden cold, has destroyed more peo- ple than famine, pestilence or sword. I saw (says an American oaker) thirteen grenadiers ly- ing dead by a spring, in consequence of drinking too freely of cold water, while dripping with sweat in a hard day's march in summer. And many a charming girl, worthy of a tenderer husband, has sunk into the icy embraces of death, by suddenly exposing her delicate frame, warm from the baii-room, to the cold air. And since the universal cause acts not by partial, but by general laws, many a good soul, with more piety than prudence, turning out quite warm from a crowded preaching into the cold air without cloak or surtout, has gone oft'in a galloping consumption to that hap- py world, where pain and sickness are unknown. What a melancholy thing it is, that people cannot take care of their souls, without neglecting their bodies, nor seek their sal- vation without ruining their health '. The use of flannel ihirts has become very general in A- merica : They should be changed once or twice a-week— No one need be afraid of becoming too delicate from the use of them.—They have quite a contrary effect. The celebrated Boerhave used to say, that nobody suf- fered by cold save fools and beggars ; the latter not being able to procure clothes, and the former not having sense to wear them. Be this as it may, I can with the strictest truth declare, that in many cases where the powers of medicine