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Octobers; 1853.] THE LEADEE. 9?9
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IJ oTiffliio.
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Wo r.ilioulil do our uLnrujfit., Lo o nc...
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. LETTERS OF A WflCflBfflSD. ¦ XVIII. Kr...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Ijl-'K; Its Dangers And Duration. The'dc...
With regard to nutrition , it must be borne in mind that , previous to maturity , the processes of organic life have two distinct duties . First , to replace such portions of the frame as are worn out by the actions of life ; and , secondly , to accumulate such additional matter as will suffice for the structure , and complete the growth of the frame . But after maturity , this second duty no longer exists ; the frame once completed , does not require materials for increase , but only for repair . We do not add new stories to . the house , -we only plaster the walls and fasten the windows . If too much nutrition be taken , too much material will be deposited , and a stafce of plethora , general or local , will be the result . If you are not going to build new stories , you must not bring fresh bricks and mortar , they will only encumber the passages , and choke up the rooms . If too little nutrition be supplied ,
debility will be the result . If you do not repair your crumbling walls and rickety staircases , your house will soon be in ruins . Hence , the adult should bear in mind that he requires proportionately less food than lie did during the periods of growth ; and he should also bear in mind two inuchneglected facts—namely , that he ¦ can neither take that food so frequently as a child , nor proceed to active employment so immediately after it . Dr . Van Oven justly remarks , though , without limiting it , as we have done , to the periods of maturity and decline , that the process of digestion can only be performed healthily and vigorously , after having been some time suspended , so as to allow the stomach to " be fully recruited from its previous labours .
" A solid , nutritious , and somewhat full meal , taken at an early period of the day , is , I believe , one of the best means of sustaining the body in good health . Some observations will be hereafter made on the varieties of foods and drinks ; but in truth the quantity taken , and the time when it is taken , is much more important than any fine-drawn distinction as to kind of food or mode of cooking . Queen Elizabeth and her ladies breakfasted on meat , bread , and strong ale . Our modern ladies take tea and coffee , and thin slices of toast or bread . The Esquimaux or Cossacks drink train-oil and ardent spirits . The inhabitants of France and Germany cat raucli more largely than wo do of vegetal )!© diet , and drink at all times of the day their acid urines . In Devonshire and Herefordshire an acid cider is the common beverage , and in the Highlands , of Scotland oatmeal porridge is in a great measure the food , and whisky the drink , of the inhabitants . The Irish peasant lives eliiefly on potatoes , and the Hindoo on rice . Yet all this variety , and much more is digested , yields nutriment , and promotes growth . '' ¦
After this breakfast , a man may proceed to his employment . Dr . Van Oven does not object to a slight luncheon , but he objects very energetically to-heavy meals taken during the hours of business or labour . A mid-day dinner lie regards as a great error , the food being often hastily swallowed , consequently not well digested , and the process of digestion being further troubled by the immediate application of the mental or p hysical powers to the work of the day . The popular notion of an early dinner being wholesome , we regard as true only when the early dinner is preceded by an early breakfast , and is not succeeded by immediate activity .
Dr . Van Oven ' s remarks are mostly of a general kind , giving general directions , to be applied according to the sagacity of the reader , rather than specific details which teach him little . We cannot follow him through these , nor through the interesting chapters forming the third part of his work , and devoted to the decline of life in disease ; in other words , to the diseases incident to old age . We must refer to the volume itself for satisfaction on these points , as also for the extremel } ' - interesting tables which he has printed in the Appendix , setting forth the names , coiulitiouB , and countries , of persons who have lived upwards of a century . liufelaud ' s Art of Prolonging Life , of which Erasmus Wilson g ives us a new edition for half a crown , should forthwith be in the possession of every one who has half a crown to spare . Its general directions are admirable , its physiological explanations very intelligible , and its multifarious details useful and interesting . We cannot allbrd space for many extracts , but here is one which is irresistible : —
TJIK AGE OF THE PATRTAItCHS . " Some have not hesitated seriously to ascribe to our forefather Adam , the height of nine hundred yards , and the age of almost a thousand years . Hut the accurate and rational investigation of modern philosophy has converted the supposed bones of giants , found in different parts of the earth , into tlioso oi the clop limit and rhinoceros ; and acute theologists have shown that the chronology of the early ages was not the same sis that used at present . Somn , jiarticulurly llensler , have proved , with the highest probability , that the year , till the time of Abraham , consisted only of three months ; that it was af'terward « extended to eight ; and that it was not till the time of Joseph that it was in aide to consist of twelve . These assertions arc , in a certain degree , confirmed by some of the eastern nations , who still reckon only three months to the y « ar ; and
besides , it would be altogether inexplicable why the life of man should have boon ( shortened one-half immediately after the flood . It would be equally inexplicable why the patriarchs did not many till their sixtieth , seventieth , and even hundredth year ; but this difficulty vanishes when we reckon these ii ^ es according to the before-mentioned stniulnrd , which will give the twentieth or thirtieth year ; and , consequently , the Mime periods at which peop le marry at present . Tlio Avhole , therefore , according to this explanation , assumes a diflorent appearanee . The sixteen hundred years before the Hood will become lour hundred and fourteen ; and the nine hundred yeans ( fciio highest recorded ) which Methuselah . lived , will be reduced to two hundred — am age which is »» ot impossible , and to which some men iu modern times have nearly npproachod . "
Before dismissing this little volume to the reader ' s care , we may take occasion to object to the metaphysical nature of Hufoland ' s conception of life , whieh vitiates his reasoning " on f , | , (> duration of life . He believes in " vitality" as a Hepui nte . ' entity . Here is a sample : —¦ " The vital power is the principal support of the body in which it resides . It not only binds and keeps together the whole organization , but it counterartti also , very strongly , the destructive influence of the . other powers of nature , far ( is they depend on chemical laws , which it is able to annihilate , or at least to modify . Among theso I reckon , in particular , the niTects of putrefaction , of the atrno tyhcrv , (\ nd , of ' front , N <| living being putrefies j a provio . ua weakening or an
nihilation of the vital power is always necessary in order to render corruption possible . " ^ We are aware that in thus declaring the vital power counteracts and for a time annihilates chemical powers , Hufeland has the sanction of all phvsiolpgists , or rather , the sanction of most physiologists , and the negative sanction of silence from the rest . It is , however , as we have shown more' than once in these columns , a confusion of ideas or a misuse of . terras . So far from vitality " counteracting" chemical laws , vitality is only the generalized expression for the special aggregate of certain chemical laws . Our bodies are laboratories , in which the laws of chemistry are incessantly active . Life itself is only possible upon a continuous composition and decomposition . breath take movement ake
Every we , every we m , every thought we think , is by means of chemical . action . The reader , however , must not suppose that we mean by this to confound " vitality" with ¦ " chemistry " . Vital phenomena are distinguished from chemical phenomena , strictly so called , by their speciality—and it is this speciality which has masked their dependence on chemical phenomena from the observer ; as we see in the oft-quoted illustration of corruption . Living bodies do not corrupt like dead bodies ; hence it has bsen concluded that living-bodies have a special protecting power , named vitality , which " counteracts" the chemical laws on which corruption depends . But if you consider this matter attentively , you will see that corruption is at bottom simply a case of chemical decotnposition . The elements forming a substance are disintegrated and redistributed . Now , this corruption goes on in the living body with the same
intensity , but with this difference , that iu the living body the movement of decomposition is accompanied by a movement of re-composition ; the process of disintegration is silently succeeded by a process of integration ; the wear and tear of action is repaired by fresh structure ; and it is on this power of repair that the duration of life depends—it is by this power of repair that living bodies are demarcated from the dead . It is because Hufeland makes this fundamental mistake respectingvitality , that his reasoning is vitiated when he comes to speak of the duration of life . He thinks that every man hay a . distinct " supply of , vitaL power" given to him us a dowry ; and as" you cannot eat your cake and have it too , so he thinks you cannot live your life and ' keep it too . Hence the principle of longevity with him is economy . ¦
" What I call retardation ' of vital consumption , as being , in my opinion , the most important means of prolonging- life , deserves here , in a particular manner , to be considered . If we suppose that each body is possessed of a certain quantity of vital power , and certain organs winch make as it vrere our stock of life , and that life consists in a consumption of" them , it must be allowed that this stock may be naturally consumed by a stronger exertion of the organs , and . by the speedier wasting-which is . connected with it . IJe who in a
day consumes twice as much of the viuil power as another , will exhaust Ms stock sooner ; and organs used with double force will in half the time be worn out and become useless . The energy of life , therefore , will be in an inverse ratio with its duration ; or the more intensively a being lives , Hie more will its life lose in extension . The expression fast living , which , as well as the thin" - itself , is nt present so common , is not then altogether improper . One may certainly make the process of vital consumption , whether it consists in labour or enjoyment , more or less rapid , and thus live either fast or slowly . ' *
This is not only in contradiction to philosophy , but also to his own illustrations , derived from experience ; for upon his own showing , idleness and celibacy are never found accompanying longevity ; the activity of all the functions—that is to say , the energetic living of life—is the only means of preserving life . It is not those who live abundantly , but those who live in excess , who fall victims to their activity ! What can he said of Krasmus Wilson's Healthy Skin ? a new editionthe fourth—as a companion to the Hufeland , and at the same trifling cost
tempts us to siiy much on it ; but the relentless necessities of space force us into almost silent acquiescence in ita immense success , without calling upon our ingenuity to point out the reasons of that success . To those who have never seen it Ave may emphatically recommend it as one of the very best books published in our time oa the great subject of personal Ivygiene , uniting philosophical power with popular exposition , scientific explanations with the most familiar illustrations ; from the development of cells to the right mode of washing 3 'our face , nothing seems too abstruse , nothing too domestic ! It is a book worth its weight in half-crowns !
JMnally , we may recommend the Memoirs of a tfto / nach , Written hi / Himself , that all who cat may read , as an amusing and ingenious lesson read to the world at large on the ill-treatment received by that important and " much enduring" individual , from the hands of nurses , mothers ( especially grandmothers ) , schoolboys , doctors , and quacks ; and mixed up with the amusement , there is also useful instruction slily and humorously conveyed .
Octobers; 1853.] The Leadee. 9?9
Octobers ; 1853 . ] THE LEADEE . 9 ? 9
Ij Otiffliio.
IJ oTiffliio .
Wo R.Ilioulil Do Our Ulnrujfit., Lo O Nc...
Wo r . ilioulil do our uLnrujfit ., Lo o ncour . 'iiV ! i . ii" B'is . p . t , iiul , / or tJiu Uriofnl oncoura / jnu it m . ' . J (' .- - ( ioi' . Tiii :.
. Letters Of A Wflcflbfflsd. ¦ Xviii. Kr...
. LETTERS OF A WflCflBfflSD . ¦ XVIII . Krvt-ii Ilillfj Aiiril 2 Hl . h , 18 w 2 . SSS DID not toll you all that passed when JYlarkhaui professed to ? m $ teach n . s how to conduct liJ ' e on oonnneroiul pr inciples ., and still fjw ) le . sw could 1 expect ,, dear friends , to toll you in detail how we : '? $ ?) woro enlightened by Con way and Kdwardes on a , philosophical conduct of life . I . should Jsi . il , partly becauao the clergyman was reluctant and fragmentary in his expoundings , partly because the surgoon was copious smd elaborate . 1 never beforo iso thoroughly appreciated the bondage entailed by that moHt English of H . ll English institutions , the CJairoh of England , u » in witnessing tlio strugg 7 o oi
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 8, 1853, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_08101853/page/19/
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