PREFACE

TO THE FIFTH VOLUME.

IN reviewing the stage of our labours which is here brought to a conclusion, we are disposed to coincide with the general admission, that the farther our Work proceeds the stronger are its claims to public favour; especially as we have the satisfaction to know that the more extensive is the support with which it is honoured. To the consistency of our practice with our professions, and of both with that duty which we owe to our country, we ascribe effects so gratifying to our ambition. Let demagogues found Societies for Preventing War, and at the same time talk of the infatuation of certain courts," which did not choose "to remain at peace with him [Buonaparte] whose chief boast and glory was that of having been the Pacificator of Europe."* Let the worthy disciples of Paine print tracts for the avowed purpose of extinguishing national animosities, and at the same time lament the " sacrifice" of the "patriots of Grenoble," and the "proscriptions, imprisonments, and banishments, of the zealous adherents of French liberty and independence"t-that is to say, of those immaculate characters who most cheerfully joined their sanguinary Moloch in overturning a throne which they had but just sworn to defend. Let traitors to the human race, maddened with despair, vent sophistries, contradictions, and political blasphemies like these, which cannot fail to draw upon them the scorn and abhorrence of every virtuous mind, and finally to consign them to neglect and oblivion. Be it ours with steady pace to pursue the course marked out for us by Patriotism and Honour; to warn our countrymen against the insinuating arts of hypocrites who would banish the very name of both from the face of the earth; and to seek in the utility of our labours the surest passport to public esteem.

Convinced as we are that nothing can tend more powerfully to the support of the present order of things than the diffusion of the sentiments which animate the numerous associations established on PITT principles throughout the kingdom, we have endeavoured in this Volume to present

• Old Monthly Mag. July 1816, p. 558.

+ Ibid. P. 559.

a view of those institutions; and though we have not been enabled to give complete effect to our intentions, still enough, we trust, has been done to show the importance of the subject. We have likewise been desirous of directing the attention of our Correspondents to the state of IRELAND, that long-neglected portion of the British Empire: and we here repeat our solicitation to be favoured with communications illustrative of its history, antiquities, and local beauties, and of the peculiar habits and moral character of its inhabitants. We have every reason to anticipate, from the more extensive diffusion of this kind of information, an increased intercourse between the two countries, which must obviously be attended with great and reciprocal advantages.

At the present crisis, when Britain experiences that lassitude, which in nations as in individuals necessarily follows strenuous and protracted exertions, it has been our wish to lead the ingenious to the consideration of the best means of alleviating the distresses under which the working classes of the community more especially labour. In the confidence that this embarrassment is but of a temporary nature, we most earnestly recommend patience under privation to those who suffer, and to all who are blessed with the gifts of fortune a residence upon their estates, and such an employment of the poor in their respective neighbourhoods as local situation or particular circumstances may render most eligible. This principle, if universally acted upon, would certainly afford material assistance to any plan which may be devised for improving the condition of the industrious poor, if not go a great way towards removing that pressure which at present they so severely feel.

On a reference to our pages it will be seen, that though the welfare of our dear native land is naturally the paramount object of our consideration, still we are far from overlooking whatever may occur of interest to literature, art, or science, in the other regions of the globe. We aspire not to be praised, quoted, or reprinted, by foreigners; and to gain such distinctions we shall never defame our country, lick the feet of a military despot, or fawn with spaniellike servility upon a republican rabble. It was purely BRITISH feelings that prompted the establishment of our Work; it is by a purely BRITISH spirit that we are ambitious of being distinguished; and to the applause of the BRITISH Nation aloue we look for our reward.

THE

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

No. 25.]

FEBRUARY 1, 1816.

[VOL. V.

MONTHLY MAGAZINES have opened a way for every kind of inquiry and information. The in telligence and discussion contained in them are very extensive and various; and they have been the means of diffusing a general habit of reading through the nation, which in a certain degree hath enlarged the public understanding. HERE, too, are preserved a multitude of useful hints, observations, and facts, which otherwise might have never appeared.-Dr. Kippis.

Every Art is improved by the emulation of Competitors.--Dr. Johnson.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

THE GUARDIAN OF HEALTH.
No. V.

GENERAL RULES FOR THE PRESERVATION
OF HEALTH.

Brodum's pills, no Solomon's Balm of Gilead, no Seltzer water, no cleansing elixirs, no bleeding-nothing of the kind. It is quite enough that the sick should resort to medicines, since they alone can experience utility in so doing. What end can a healthy person who purges or bleeds have in view? Perhaps to prevent some future disease. But who can tell what disease this will be? and what physician can prescribe for a disease of the nature of which he has not the slightest notion?

I shall deem myself most happy, if my readers will attend to this my first admonition to abstain from the use of all medicines till they find that they stand in need of them; and this will be the case, if, notwithstanding a regular mode of life, they should still be unwell. Icheerfully subjoin this limitation; for when

IS it possible that there can be people in the world to whom health is a burden? It certainly would appear so; for upon what other principle can we account for the conduct of those who without any ailment whatever have recourse to medicine? Farbe it from me to find fault with any individual who, perceiving the symptoms of approaching indisposition, takes speedy measures for arresting its progress. But why should such as enjoy the most robust health determine for weeks, nay months beforehand to lose blood, or go -through a course of medicine at particular -seasons, unless they were tired of that state and considered it expedient to interrupt its longer continuance? How too, can the physician set about pre-indispositions arise from irregularities in scribing for a patient who has no disease? He prescribes neither meat nor drink, and these are the only things requisite for a person in health. Physic can neither satisfy the appetite, nor nourish the -body; since every medicine is the medium of producing new actions, which are never of benefit but when instituted to subvert those prejudicial ones already existing in the system. Such is the genuine object of the medical art. The effects of medicines are deviations from health as well as the complaints against which they are directed, and they accomplish a cure by substituting a milder disease, and thus interrupting the course of that which previously existed. But what are they when there are no existing disorders for them to oppose?-diseases which thoughtless fools wantonly bring upon themselves, when they are tired of the enjoyment of health.

For the healthy there is no other rational way of remaining so than by conforming to the dictates of nature-no NEW MONTHLY MAG.-No, 25.

the natural functions, they may in general be removed by correcting the latter. For this reason I consider it better to debar persons in health from all preventives and merely to recommend attention to a regular habit of body as the universal preservative against medicines as well as diseases, than unnecessarily to prescribe diet-drinks, mineral waters or decoctions, with the fanciful but fallacious view of purifying the blood.

But how are we to obtain that healthy state of the body in which our ancestors grew old without any preventives? It is requisite that we imitate as much as possible their mode of life. They dwelt in forests and fields, where the sky was their shelter, and the earth their couch. They breathed a pure, salubrious, balmy air, such as is not to be found in any close apartment constantly inhabited by several persons. We must, it is true, again become barbarians like them, if we in these respects closely copy their example. But what hinders us from pursuing a VOL. V. B

2

:

General Rules for the Preservation of Health.

middle track? We may enjoy pure air and yet not live in tents. We need only to make a point of frequently opening our windows to allow the escape of unwholesome exhalations. We need only to avail ourselves of the fine weather to go abroad. We need only avoid filling our apartments unnecessarily with coaldamp, aqueous vapours, and smells, which though they belong not to a thousand cleanliness, are universally met even among the higher classes. The with pure sweet air is the cordial of life and à refreshment to the soul: it braces the body and cheers the spirits. Our forefathers enjoyed another advantage, for they were compelled by necessity to live temperately. A good table, as we call it, is one of the most dangerous of temptations for our appetites are never silent, and if they even would be so, wine renders them clamorous. We eat to gratify the palate, and this we might certainly do without danger, were we not accustomed to load our stomachs with such an endless variety of heterogeneous substances. Now the stomach is sooner satisfied than the palate, and the former may be satiated before the longing of the latter is appeased. In this manner we derange the functions of this important organ, the source whence issue all the juices destined for the nourishment of the body; and it is evident that the purity of these must be influenced by the vigorous or oppressed state of the diges tive powers. On this account I commend Diogenes who stopped in the street a young man going to an entertainment, and conducted him back to his friends in the same manner as if he had rescued him from an imminent danger into which he was about to rush. On this sally of Diogenes, Addison makes these pertinent observations:-"What would that philosopher have said, had he been present at the gluttony of a modern meal? Would not he have thought the master of a family mad and have begged his servants to tie down his hands, had he seen him devour fowl, fish, and flesh; swallow oil and vinegar, wines and spices; throw down sallads of twenty different herbs, sauces of an hundred ingredients, confections and fruits of rumberless sweets and flavours? What unnatural motions and counter-ferments must such a medley of intemperance produce in the body? For my part when I be hold a fashionable table set out in all its magnificence, I fancy that I see outs and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, with other

[Feb. 1.

innumerable distempers lying in ambus cade among the dishes."

Our forefathers subsisted like our pri their fare was little better. To their soners upon bread and water, or at least longevity which they attained: at any temperance and sobriety is ascribed the rate it is certain that very few addicted solitary instances to the contrary might to intemperance live to be old. Some middle of the last century a village barber indeed be adduced. Thus about the in Gascony, named Espagno who never lost blood, never took physic, and who went to bed sober, was never ill, never married a second wife in his 90th year, died at the age of 112, leaving behind a daughter of 20, the issue of this union. Thus too I have heard of a drunkard who lived to be 100 years old, though during the last fifteen years he swallowed such examples are of rare occurrence, three quarts of spirits every day. But and afford no ground on which we can rely, since it must be admitted that they are extraordinary deviations from the usual and established course of nature.

health. The body must be exercised, or Exercise is an essential requisite for we cannot all be farmers and soldiers. it will not thrive. It is true indeed that We must have students and literary men; we must have sedentary females and artisans; we must have people of distinction who sacrifice their personal welfare for the good of the community, and who and horses in motion, cramp themselves while they keep their coachmen, footmen ed. All these classes, however, and the up till they become crooked and deformliterati in particular, might obtain exercise enough, if they were seriously intent upon it and deemed motion to be as necessary as it really is. On this subject I cannot forbear quoting a passage of Athenæus. The Areopagites summoned before them two young men who were very poor and studied philosophy, and asked them by what means they kept themselves in such good condition.them, " "You have nothing to do," said they to out employment, and pass it in listening you spend the whole day withonly to the lectures of the philosophers." The young men, whose names were Asclepiades and Menedemus, appealed to He attested that they came every night a miller who was immediately sent for. had earned two drachms. The assembly, to his mill, and there worked till they pleased with their industry, ordered * Spectator, No. 195.