EVACUATION
—is that part of the ANIMAL ŒCONOMY, without a regular preservation of which, the frame of man or beast cannot long continue free from PAIN or DISEASE. Next to the aliment necessarily received for the support of life, EVACUATION is the very effort of Nature upon which HEALTH must principally depend. Little penetration is requisite to comprehend most perfectly a system so plain as to require but very concise explanation. Consistency should be observed, and attention should be paid, to what the frame receives by FOOD, and what it discharges by the different evacuations; for if the body (within any given time) accumulates much more by unreasonable and unnecessary supplies, than the EFFORTS of Nature can carry off by her different emunctories in the evacuation of excrements, the foundation of disease follows of course. The fluids become thick and stagnant, the circulation languid, the solids preternaturally distended, and their elasticity partially destroyed; hence arises that infinite number of distorted VALETUDINARIANS with which the streets of the Metropolis so plentifully abound, and by whom the constantly increasing MEDICAL SHOPS and MEDICINE WHAREHOUSES are principally supported.
By adverting to these considerations, it will immediately appear, that even a temporary suppression of the natural evacuations must, in the first instance, inevitably prove the basis of pain or disquietude, and lastly of DISEASE. In the human body, great attention should be paid to diurnal evacuation, if a wish to preserve health is at all entertained. Infinite are the miseries originally brought on, and for years continued, (to a lingering death,) by an inconsiderate neglect or indolence in respect to the due proportion to be observed between repletion and evacuation.
This attention is not more necessary in the human frame, than it is with the HORSES of those who indulge the least desire to have their studs in high health and perfect condition. When a horse is observed to get above himself, or, in other words, to become loaded with flesh, too full in the carcase, round in the legs, thick in the wind, dull in the stable, and heavy in action, EVACUATION cannot be too soon promoted as a preventive to impending disease.