MEANS

OF

PRESERVING HEALTH.

LECT. I.

INTRODUCTION.

SOME of you, I trust, need not be told, that it was at one time my duty to endeavour to alleviate the miseries induced by sickness in the district which surrounds us. How far I was successful in my efforts for this purpose, I must leave for you to decide.

One thing I confess that I have left undone. When I entered on the duties of my office of Physician to the London Dispensary, I quickly perceived that to cure or to alleviate actual sickness was not all that was necessary to be done. Whilst I saw that it was far more important to confirm and preserve health, I saw that there were many causes constantly operating to disturb, ruin, and destroy it. Had the remedies for these evils been as obvious as the evils themselves, I should have been guilty of heinous negligence, not to say cruelty, in so long delaying to bring them forward. Two great and almost insurmountable obstacles started, to oppose the design which I was not backward to form.

The greater and more important difficulty was, the selection of means capable of bringing about the end so earnestly to be wished.

B

The other difficulty was, to find a plan by which the desired means, when discovered, might be brought into practice. This difficulty was far less than the former. In casting my eyes around me, over this district, they were soon fixed on your Institution; and I immediately perceived its importance in reference to the object which I had at heart.

Let me tell you, that in countries which are not blessed with the same degree of freedom as this, the diminished liberty of the subject receives some compensation in the zealous care which their Governments exercise over the state of the public health. To us, Englishmen, these laws, however useful, could never be tolerable. What cannot be done by law, must, therefore, be done by persuasion. To many, if not most of the inhabitants of this district, the reasons on which depend the precepts which I am about to offer would be unintelligible. To you, who have imbibed the principles of those sciences which are taught in this Institution, they will, I hope, be found both clear and convincing.

Whilst, in the name of our common country, I call upon you to increase her prosperity, by seeking your own well-being, let me intreat you to furnish a plain and irresistible answer to those who call in question the propriety and advantages of an Institution like yours; and who conceive, that to cultivate the native talent, and increase the knowledge of the operatives, is to render them unfit for the discharge of their duties, and to make them dissolute private characters and disaffected subjects.

A celebrated ancient philosopher was one day asked what was the advantage of the doctrines which he taught his disciples. He replied, "That his disciples

did those things of their own accord, which others performed only through the influence and terror of the law." It is for you, in the loud language of actions, to give a similar reply to those who would withhold from you the benefits of philosophy.

It is my intention, in this and in my succeeding Lectures, to explain some of the principal causes which operate injuriously on the condition of the public health, more especially in districts situated as that around us (Spitalfields), and briefly to point out the principles on which the remedies should be founded.

It is needless that I should attempt to describe what is to be understood by a state of perfect health; or even that I should enter minutely into the different operations which, during life, are going forward in our bodies. You must all have often heard life compared to a flame; and this simile will suit my purpose tolerably well.

The combustible materials—say, the wick and oilmust not merely be raised to the proper temperature: they must be surrounded by an atmosphere containing a principle capable of supporting combustion; which in this, as in most instances, consists of oxygen, which, as you know, forms a most important part of the air in which we move. So long as the flame is burning, the oxygen is being consumed; and if its supply be limited, the flame becomes fainter and fainter, and ultimately goes out. The case is the same with life. The supply of oxygen must be constant. The functions of life languish as it is removed; and the portion so consumed enters into a combination, which is as injurious to life, as it is destructive to combustion

It is not merely necessary that the combustible should have access to oxygen, and be ignited: it is

often necessary, for the continuance of the flame, that protection should be afforded against those accidents which might endanger it.

Thus much of my simile points to those precepts which be on our relation with the atmosphere; viz. those which treat of AIR and CLOTHING.

air is sup

When the flame is kindled, when proper plied, when wet and wind, and other causes capablè of extinguishing it, are effectually guarded against, a continual supply of the oil or other combustible material is absolutely necessary for the maintenance of the flame. So with respect to human life: our ease and comfort, and even our existence, cannot be assured by air and clothing alone; but from time to time we are under the necessity of repairing the loss of those materials which, in a visible or invisible form, are constantly passing off from our bodies. This, you know, is effected by the food, solid and fluid, which we take into our stomachs, and which, by the important process of digestion, become converted into a part of our bodies.

As the Virgins in the Parable merited the appellation of wise or foolish according to the provision which they made for the burning of their lamps; so, with respect to the preservation of life and health, wisdom or folly may be shewn by our use or abuse of the various articles which we consume in the daily acts of eating and drinking.

To furnish you with some hints on this part of the subject, I shall devote my Second Lecture to the consideration of DIGESTION and DIET.

As I proceed to the next branch of our subject, the simile of a lamp, which I have employed in the illustration, becomes less strictly applicable. But let us help it a little, and carry it somewhat further.

In order that the lighted lamp, or candle, may burn in situations in which its light may answer some useful or agreeable purpose, it is often necessary that it should be conveyed from place to place. Something beyond the mere phænomenon of combustion is called for; and the instrument, which we have made use of as a simile, is brought under the influence of a new and external power, which, if well directed, may render it a source of advantage or enjoyment: and, on the contrary, this force may be misapplied ;—the light may be useless, or the flame may be extinguished, or become the cause of mischief and evil.

In that most perfect and complicated of instruments, the human body, we find combined with that which we have compared to the lamp-with its oil, wick, and flame-organs, by which, although possessed of this power of self-motion, it reduces other forces to its subjection, and compels them to become the agents of its locomotion.

It is as needless for me to attempt to enumerate, as it would be difficult to know where to leave off enumerating, what may be done by the combined agency of those powers which man possesses in his own person, and of those which he derives from the objects, animate and inanimate, which surround him.

It is evident, then, that abundant materials for the Third Lecture may be found in the consideration of the LIMBS, the organs or instruments by which the MOVEMENTS of the body are effected.

To this division of the subject will, of course, belong the influence which the health receives from the various bodily exercises performed, either in the way of business or recreation.

Nor can this subject be dismissed without a transient