PREFACE. A SMALL portion of the matter contained in the following pages has appeared in the Author's former Treatise on Health; but so many additions and corrections have been made as to justify him in presenting it to the public as an entirely new work. The rapid progress which his countrymen are unfortunately making in habits of sensual indulgence and sedentary occupation, is his apology for calling their attention to the means of preserving health and prolonging life. A prosperous commerce, while it multiplies the numbers of those whose usual avocations are devoid of bodily exertion, both encourages the disposition to luxury and supplies the means of gratification. Enfeebled health, hereditary diseases, and a shortened life, are chiefly characteristic of two classes in society— the affluent and the poor; and they would be much more frequent among the former, were they not counteracted by those habits of cleanliness and locomotion which distinguish them. Their frequent ablutions, their roomy houses, their travelling carriages, and the greater purity of the air they generally breathe, save them from some of the effects that would otherwise ensue from their unnatural practices in other respects. As to medical skill, the highest degrees of which such persons can of course command, though by that means they may escape some diseases and be cured of others, and the general semblance of health may thus be maintained, yet the curative processes are usually such as trench upon the prescribed term of existence. But the Author addresses himself more particularly to the middle classes, to those whose occupations are sedentary and their habits luxurious, and who dwell in large towns; to such, in fact, as have the means of gratifying the bodily appetites, but want the means or the disposition to counteract the injurious tendency of too much inertness, and the still more injurious tendency of too much eating, drinking, and sleeping, by frequent active exercise in the open air of the suburbs of their places of abode. Among such persons it is that he hopes to reap the fruit of his labour. They will meet with nothing in the following pages but what is very plain in matter and in manner; but he will venture to affirm, that, however obvious may be the thoughts, however unpretending the style, they will meet with much which, put in practice, would prove lastingly useful to them. Lest any one should complain of repetition as detracting from the claims of the work to public attention, the Author would observe that repetition was designed. The greatest moral reforms have been achieved by the frequent iteration of simple and self-evident truths. "Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed sæpe cadendo." And the Author has tried the same experiment. Whether he will succeed in making an impression, whether the means so efficacious in morals will prove of equal efficacy in physics, remains to be seen. To nothing is it so reasonable to expect men will listen as to counsels in which their personal interests are directly concerned. The Author has spoken in "reason's ear," and he has a faith that it will not prove altogether deaf to his warnings. Be this as it may, he will have the consolation of reflecting when going down to his own grave, that he has made a sincere and an earnest, if not a successful, effort to prevent multitudes of his fellow-men from hurrying prematurely into theirs. King's Road, January 1, 1838. |