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inured to it, and it has no more effect upon her than a cool air would have upon the others.

For this reason I was justified in commencing the present paper by asserting, that the way to endure without inconvenience what physicians consider as dangerous, is to accustom ourselves to every thing. To illustrate this position, I will go through the principal things to which we may habituate ourselves; that I may at the same time have an opportunity of adding some remarks serviceable to such as think fit to choose this convenient way for preserving health and attaining long life, contrary to all rules of the science.

A few general rules must be premised. Though Celsus has remarked, that people ought to accustom themselves to every thing, that they may not sink under every trivial accident, still he advises a good choice in the things to which they should strive to become habituated. Gardens, fields, the city, the water, the chace, are all praised by him, but he recommends exercise in preference to repose. Thus there are things to which people must not accustom themselves, because it is more beneficial to life and health that they should not acquire this facility. As habit does away with the effects of certain sensations and perceptions, so it can also annihilate such effects as are conducive to health. Indolent repose weakens the animal powers; it is, therefore, better that it should be oppressive to us, that we may avoid it, than that we should learn by habit to endure it. This observation applies to numberless other cases. When we have accustomed ourselves to a hundred things, still a thousand others are left to which we are not accustomed, and which, on account of our being habituated to the former, we cannot bear without the greater danger. Whoever has habituated himself to digest coarse food, is attacked with fever if he is confined to a light delicate diet. It would, therefore, have been more serviceable to him if he had not accustomed himself solely to hard fare. Well then, you will reply, let people habituate themselves to opposites, to cold and heat, to heavy and light food, &c. But it should be known that this is not always practicable; and it is the more dangerous to accustom ourselves to some things only. Great caution is therefore necessary, in the choice of the things to which people strive to habituate themselves, and they ought, moreover, to consider the whole state of the body, and all the circumstances in which they are at present, or may in future chance to be. Nay, more-habit extends only to the animal nature; all the parts of the mechanism of the human body do not belong to this nature, though they are requisite for health and life. There are, of course, circumstances in human life, which the power of habit cannot control, because they are not within its domain. Blood when obstructed, tends to putrefaction, and habit cannot prevent this, because it is a merely physical, but not an animal effect. It is, there fore, proper to guard against such habits, the consequences of which extend to the physical nature of the human body, where they are no longer under its control. On account of the great complication of the animal with the mechanical and physical changes in animals, the cases indeed are rare, in which any thing of this kind could happen. Their bare possibility, however, demonstrates, that he would act very unwisely, who should imagine, that he ought to be able to accustom himself to

every thing, or who should be weak enough to suffer himself to be persuaded by the authority of old adages, that there is nothing in nature to which people may not habituate themselves; that, what one has accustomed himself to, another may; and that by habit we may produce a complete revolution in nature. These much too general maxims are as false as it would be to assert, that we ought not to accustom ourselves to any thing; that habit does not enable us to endure more than what nature is capable of enduring without it, since the weakest person, in particular things to which he has accustomed himself, is stronger than the most robust man; that we cannot wean ourselves from any thing that has once become natural; or, that we ought to wean ourselves from such things only as are troublesome.

It is, moreover, to be observed, that no habit is to be acquired suddenly, but only by long practice. We ought not, therefore, to rely upon it too early, and to expose ourselves to dangers which we are not yet capable of enduring. This indiscretion costs many their lives. When they have several times indulged in irregularities or excesses with impunity, they become bold, and venture once more at an unlucky moment to repeat them, under the idea that habit has rendered them harmless.

The safest habits are those which we have acquired, not of ourselves, but through the management of those who had the care of us in our tenderest infancy. Adults find it more difficult, and the aged very rarely succeed, in gaining new habits. For the sick and persons of weak constitutions, it is never advisable to attempt to acquire new habits, or to relinquish old ones, whether in themselves beneficial or pernicious. Paul Jovius says of the physician of Pope Clement VII., named Curtius, that he was considered as being to blame for his death, because he persuaded his Holiness, who, though yet a hearty man, was advanced in years, to adopt a more regular way of living than he had previously been accustomed to. The same animadversion is passed by Onuphrius Panphinius, on the physician of Pope Julius III., who was affected with the gout; though others are of opinion, that he brought upon himself the fever of which he died by feigning indisposition, from reasons of state, and, to save appearances, taking lighter food than he had been used to do. Galen expressly forbids the attempting of any alteration, even in bad habits, during illness, and relates a case in point. A certain Aristotle of Mytilene, had never drank cold water, but was attacked with a disease in which it was thought necessary for him to take it. The patient declared his conviction that it would produce spasms, and appealed to an instance of the kind within his own knowledge he nevertheless strove, for his benefit, as he thought, to overcome habit. He drank the water, and died. So essential is it that physicians themselves should be guided by the habits of their patients; and upon this is grounded the maxim of those who assert that they will not have any physician, who is not acquainted with the nature of their constitution. This nature is made up chiefly of their habits; so that Celsus was perfectly right when he observed, that no physician could be so serviceable to a patient as one who was at the same time his intimate friend.

So much for general rules! Let us now consider the principal and VOL. VI. No. 34.-1823.

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the most common things over which habit can acquire dominion, and we shall be astonished what it is capable of effecting, when it determines to violate all the laws of medicine.

Every one knows what dangers they have to apprehend who live in an unwholesome air. Habit, however, can enable people to endure it. Sanctorius relates, that a man, who had lived twenty years in a close dungeon, became sickly as soon as he was liberated, and that he never could regain his health, though he had the best medical advice, till he furnished occasion for his being once more confined in the same prison. I knew a female myself, who had lived so many years shut up in her apartment, that even in the finest weather she durst not open her window, because the fresh air made her faint away. Birds that have been long confined in close rooms, become sickly and die as soon as they are exposed to the air. There are people who are so habituated to a dry, and others to a damp air, that they cannot endure any other. How many travellers fall sick when they quit their own country and breathe a foreign air! How the unfortunate armies engaged in the crusades were thinned as soon as they reached the distant theatre of operations! Observations of this kind induced Paul Zacchias to advise patients to seek the air of their native country, to which they were accustomed, though it were even bad in comparison with that in which they actually were. Habit enables the hunter, as Cicero says, to pass the night upon the snow, and, in the day-time, to brave the scorching heat of the sun upon the mountains. Soldiers afford instances of the same kind. Vegetius remarks that the most experienced generals have exercised their troops in snow and rain, in consequence of which they have remained healthy while in camp, and been rendered vigorous and persevering in battle. I might also adduce in evidence our stagecoachmen who travel day and night in all weathers: nay, our labourers, our farming-men, and in particular the trampers, some of whom scarcely know what it is to lodge in a house, prove every day by their example, that the most inclement weather has no effect upon them. In their case, however, a few circumstances are to be considered. Most of these persons are the offspring of robust parents, and from their infancy have been exposed to all the vicissitudes of the seasons. Such as have perished in their apprenticeship, if I may so term it, are not taken into the account; and even those who are most inured to hardships are often suddenly attacked by diseases which consign them to the grave. If, therefore, people are to be so brought up as to be rendered extremely hardy, a large proportion of them must be expected to perish in the attempt. The Ostiaks, who rove about in the northern parts of Siberia, and can withstand all weathers, would no doubt be more numerous, if they were not so hardly bred. It is easy to imagine how many of them must perish, if the women, according to Weber's account, bring forth their children during their excursions, in the open air, and immediately after their birth sometimes plunge them into the snow, at others put them into their warm bosoms, and in this manner pursue their route with them. Such as survive this treatment, indeed, are so much the more hardy. A Tartar infant, which has stood the test of being plunged, just after its birth, into water, through a hole made in the ice, an Ostiak, or a Russian, will afterwards experience no inconvenience, when, on arriving at manhood, he runs naked out of the hot

bath and leaps into the river which is full of floating ice: on the contrary, this is to him an agreeable refrigerant. All the hardy persons who triumph over Nature, have laid the foundation of their robust constitution in the first years of infancy, when nobody cared whether they lived or died. From being thus hardly brought up, the Laplanders, the Swiss, and the peasantry of almost every country, can defy the vicissitudes of the weather, scarcely feel the severest cold, and are rendered capable of enduring the fatigues of war. Hence it is evident that these people are not fit models for the imitation of persons descended from less hardy progenitors, and who have been more delicately reared.

The most offensive effluvia, which delicate persons cannot endure, are frequently a refreshment to those who are accustomed to them. Vega cured a seaman who was thrown into an almost fatal swoon by the savoury smells of a grand entertainment, by causing him to be laid on the beach and covered with mire and sea-weed, by which means he came to himself again in about four hours. Lemnius relates of a peasant who fainted at the smell of the drugs in an apothecary's shop, that he recovered on being carried to a dunghill. Strabo has remarked that the Sabæans, who swooned at perfumes, were revived by means of burnt rosin and goats' hair. Such persons resemble the Karausches, who live in mud, as in their proper element; and yet we find that such hardy people are sometimes suddenly deprived of life by a violent stench.

In regard to food, it is very certain that habit can raise us above the standard of ordinary men. "Meat and drink to which we are accustomed," says Hippocrates, " agree with us, though naturally pernicious; but not those aliments to which we are unaccustomed, though naturally wholesome :" and hence he concludes, that it is more beneficial to adhere to the same sorts of food than to change them abruptly, even though we substitute better in their stead. Alexander the Great, when in India, found it necessary to forbid his army the use of wholesome food, because it carried off the men, owing to their not being accustomed to it. So true is the observation of Celsus, that "whatever is contrary to our habits, whether it be hard or soft, is prejudicial to health."

Excess in eating and drinking may even become habitual. When Dionysius, the Sicilian tyrant, was prevented by a siege from indulging in this kind of excess, he wasted away till he was enabled to resume his habits of intemperance. Drunkards, in the morning, when sober, can scarcely stand upon their legs; but when they return home at night intoxicated, they walk with as firm a step as the most sober of us all. Many of them continue to swill till the moment of their death, and even prolong their lives by so doing; for to deprive them by force of their liquor would, in reality, but accelerate their end. Sanctorious advised a Hungarian nobleman to give up drinking strong wines; but he was reduced so low by confining himself to lighter sorts, that he was absolutely obliged to return to the strong. Such habits ought not to induce any one to imitate them; for the very practice by which they are acquired injures the constitution to such a degree, that no sooner have we gained the desired habit than we perceive how near it has brought us to a premature grave. Wepfer saw a person who could

swallow melted butter by spoonfuls without injury; and I myself knew an old man, whose veracity I had no reason to doubt, who declared that he had often drunk at once a pint of melted fat without sustaining any inconvenience. Pechlin states, that some one had so accustomed himself to putrid water in Holland, that when, on account of debility of the stomach, he was advised to relinquish that beverage, he found it impossible to dispense with it, at least boiled and mixed with spice. Wine, on the other hand, was so disgusting to him, that he never could take it otherwise than diluted with water. But what person would be so mad as to accustom himself to drink melted fat or putrid water? We ought not to accustom ourselves to any thing to which we cannot become habituated but to the injury of our health and the peril of our lives.

To this class belong particularly medicines and poisons; especially as many seek either fame or benefit in habituating themselves to them. I have frequently condemned the unlucky mania of many healthy persons for taking physic; the very habit which is thus acquired is the strongest reason for desisting from the practice. According to the laws of habit, the more frequently medicines are employed, the weaker is their operation; and to what remedies shall the sick have recourse, when they have already accustomed themselves to their use in health? Experience proves these pernicious effects from all species of medicines and poisons. A cathartic frequently repeated ceases to produce any effect. Theophrastus knew a person who ate black hellebore by handfuls, without vomiting or purging. The common use of mercury renders that remedy inefficacious in the venereal disease. The men who are obliged to work in quicksilver mines are thrown in the first days into a violent salivation; when they are afterwards compelled by blows to resume this dangerous occupation, that effect ceases, and no sooner has habit enabled them to withstand the influence of the metallic effluvia than death carries them off. Of opium I shall here say nothing, as I intend to make it the subject of a distinct paper.-A woman who had brought a consumption upon herself by the immoderate use of spirits, when reduced to the last extremity, sent for a physician; she was in a hectic fever, quite emaciated, swollen, and completely exhausted. She had been previously accustomed to drink a bottle of French brandy every day, and the physician actually found her intoxicated. He exhorted her to discontinue this practice, and her attendants were strictly forbidden to give her any spirituous liquors. She had scarcely passed a day in this forced abstinence, when all about her prepared for her speedy dissolution. She became delirious; her eyes were fixed; her cough almost choaked her; she could not sleep a wink; excessive perspiration at night, and diarrhoea in the day, exhausted her small remains of strength: she seemed no longer to see, to hear, or to feel. The doctor, who exerted all his skill for her relief, could not prevent her becoming daily worse; and though the patient earnestly solicited the indulgence of brandy, he forbade it for that reason the more strictly. She passed nine days in this state between life and death. At length her maid-servant took pity on her and gave her a bottle of brandy. She drank about a third of it at once, and the remainder in the course of the day. Her evident improvement induced her attendants to

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