As for what Reception these Papers are like to meet with, tho’ I have ventur’d abroad in a Cause so obsolete, in an Age so fruitful in Pharmacy, and abounding in Splendid Discoveries; and tho’ I am destitute of a New Hypothesis, that Specious Image of Truth, that Idol to which the Learned all bow down; yet, if what I have advanc’d be strictly Conformable to Truth, and of real Necessity in some few Extremities, I hope I may pass, upon the Merits of my Subject, tho’ without Flourish and Ornament.
Medicina Gymnastica:
OR, A
TREATISE
Concerning the
Power of Exercise
With Respect to the
Animal Oeconomy.
That the Use of Exercise does conduce very much to the Preservation of Health, that it promotes the Digestions, raises the Spirits, refreshes the Mind, and that it strengthens and relieves the whole Man, is scarce disputed by any; but that it should prove Curative in some particular Distempers, and that too when scarce any thing else will prevail, seems to obtain little Credit with most People, who tho’ they will give a Physician the hearing when he recommends the frequent Use of Riding, or any other sort of Exercise; yet at the bottom look upon it as a forlorn Method, and the Effect rather of his Inability to relieve ’em, than of his Belief that there is any great matter in what he advises: Thus by a negligent Diffidence they deceive themselves, and let slip the Golden Opportunities of recovering, by a diligent Struggle, what could not be procur’d by the Use of Medicine alone.
Whether this proceeds from the Customs of these Northern Nations, so different from those of the Ancients, and of more Southern Countries, who seem to have plac’d almost as much in their Methods of Exercise, as in their internal Physick; or whether from the narrow Notions most People have conceiv’d of the Art of Physick, as if it imply’d little more than Internals only, without considering that External, Mechanical, and all other Means whatsoever, that give Relief, properly belong to it; this I shall not pretend to determine, but this I think I may venture to affirm, That most Men indulge themselves in the Expectation of more sudden Relief, than the Nature of the Case will admit of, as if they thought that Medicine was always to take like a Charm, without putting ’em to the Expence of much Time or Pains; they do not consider the wonderful Variety of the Disorders of Nature, and the Stubbornness of some Cases, which will not permit the Sick to be wholly passive, but indispensably oblige him to conspire with his Physician, and strive indefatigably to exalt his Constitution to a degree requisite to supply the Defect of internal Physick; which industrious striving on the part of the Sick, being what is here meant by Exercise, and which it is my purpose to represent, as more efficacious than it is generally believ’d to be; I think it proper, first to explain what I mean by it in this place.
By Exercise then, I understand all that Motion or Agitation of the Body, of what kind soever, whether voluntary or involuntary, and all Methods whatsoever, which without the Use of Internals, may (or without which Internals alone may not always) suffice to enable Nature to expel the Enemy which oppresses her; confining my self to the Consideration of it only as it may prove Curative, not as Palliative, or barely Preservative.
And here, before I attempt to demonstrate how Exercise proves so beneficial in some few Cases, it may not be amiss to premise briefly some of the ways Nature takes to relieve her self, when in danger of being oppress’d, which may serve to illustrate my following Discourse; as likewise some Instances of the Efforts of Nature, caus’d by external Application, or at least by such Internals as cannot be suppos’d to be Cordial or Vinous, or to be assimilated with the Blood and Animal Spirits.
First, then; We may observe how Nature acquits her self of what we commonly call a Cold, wherein a considerable quantity of the Materia perspirabilis is detain’d, by a sudden Constriction of the Pores of the Skin, we shall find, that after some time the saline Particles growing turgid, vellicate some Fibres of the fifth Pair of Nerves dispers’d about the Nose, which by consent draw the Diaphragm into a Convulsive Motion, by which the Air is press’d out of the Lungs thro’ the Nose with some Violence; and by the shock the Glands of those Parts are open’d, and the Humour, which was detain’d, is let out. This is Sneezing; to which frequently is join’d Gauping or Retching, another Method of Nature to shake off a Load that she finds growing upon her; this is more often repeated than Sneezing, and may be conceiv’d to dilate some internal Parts by those Stretchings out of the Limbs, and more plentiful Inspiration; Sanctorius tells us in the 31st Aphorism of his fourth Section, that, Corpora Oscitatione & Pandiculatione horæ dimidiæ spatio magis perspirant, quàm tribus horis alterius temporis, and compares it to a Cock’s clapping his Wings after his Rest; so that it is manifest, that even in that vulgar Affect there is an Alteration caused in the Body, that is not Contemptible.