The silent mandates of the Almighty’s will;
Whose hand unseen the works of Nature dooms,
By laws unknown;—who gives and who resumes.”
Again, on reviewing the histories of bygone ages, we learn that from the earliest times disease has visited every country with a frequency and malignancy always proportioned to the intensity of the predisposing causes. Under the head of Nature and Causes of Disease, I have already advanced that disease arises from certain conditions or vicissitudes of the atmosphere, together with the application of other powers producing direct debility. Over the former, as the exciting, the vital cause, we have but little control; it is the latter only, the predisposing causes, that we can attempt to counteract with a fair prospect of success. Seeing that such predisposing causes more generally arise from the infraction of the unalterable laws originally laid down for the government of mankind,—from a neglect of the most obvious laws of our being,—and that Providence, for the most part, acts by SECONDARY CAUSES, we should direct our efforts to the arresting of every condition which predisposes to or aggravates disease, such condition being more or less subject to human regulations.
“Prevention,” says the adage, “is better than cure.” When the sources of sickness have been remedied, the production of the evil has been limited, if not totally annihilated; it is, therefore, to the adoption and enforcement, by judicious legislative enactments, of prophylactic measures, based on scientific views, that we would direct especial attention; for by such measures we not only, to a great extent, prevent disease, by rendering the body less susceptible of it, but, when attacked by it, we lessen its fatality, by placing the vital system in a normal condition, capable of bearing up against it:—
“Salus populi est suprema lex.”
It is a lamentable fact, that in this our own country, with all its practical talent, and its great advance in civilization, hitherto so little progress has been made in a matter deeply involving the moral, as well as the physical, condition of the great mass of our population. As one proof out of many of what may be effected by judicious measures, we may advert to the present condition of our navy, as contrasted with that of the last century. Formerly we heard among our seamen of nothing but dysentery, fevers, scurvy, &c., which diseases have been known to depopulate whole fleets. In the year 1726, when at sea, great mortality occurred from these scourges in the fleet, consisting of seven ships, under the command of Admiral Hosier, on the West India station. He twice lost the crew of his own ship. In the year 1741, also at sea, half the crew of Captain Anson’s fleet died from scurvy in less than six weeks after leaving England; and in the year 1780, 11,732 cases of scurvy, dysentery, and fever were sent to Haslar Hospital from the Channel fleet! whilst now, from the attention paid to the construction of our shipping, to ventilation, cleanliness, and diet, we scarcely meet with these diseases among the seamen, and the wards of Haslar Hospital, which formerly were crowded with cases of scorbutic disease, now seldom exhibit a case.
The two grand essentials for vitality are Light and Air, to which may be added, Water. These, which are supplied to us by an all-wise and beneficent Creator in unlimited abundance, are indispensably necessary to a healthy state of animal life; the absence of the one, or impurity of the other, as being detrimental to life, should take the lead of all sanitary measures.
“Light————————
——————Nature’s resplendent robe!