XXXIV.
HUFELAND. 1762–1836.
NOT entitled to rank among the greater prophets who have had the penetration to recognise the essential barbarism, no less than the unnaturalness, of Kreophagy (disguised, as it is, by the arts of civilisation), this most popular of all German physicians, with the Cornaros and Abernethys, may yet claim considerable merit as having, in some degree, sought to stem the tide of unnatural living, which, under less gross forms indeed than those of the darker ages of dietetics, and partially concealed in the refinements of Art, is more difficult to be resisted by reason of its very disguise. If the renaissance of Pythagorean dietetics had already dawned for the deeper thinkers, the age of science and of reason, as regards the mass of accredited teachers, was yet a long way off; and to all pioneers, even though they failed to clear the way entirely, some measure of our gratitude is due.
Christian Wilhelm Hufeland is one of the most prolific of medical writers. Having studied medicine at Jena and at Gottingen he took the degree of doctor in 1783. At Jena he occupied a professorial chair (1793), and came to Berlin five years later, where he was entrusted with the superintendence of the Medical College. Both as practical physician and as professor, Hufeland attained a European reputation. The French Academy of Sciences elected him one of its members. His numerous writings have been often reprinted in Germany. Among the most useful are: (1) Popular Dissertations upon Health (Leipsig, 1794); (2) Makrobiotik: oder die Kunst das Menschliche Leben zu Verlängern (Jena, 1796), a celebrated work which has been translated into all the languages of Europe[203]; (3) Good Advice to Mothers upon the most Important Points of the Physical Education of Children in the First Years (Berlin, 1799); (4) History of Health, and Physical Characteristics of our Epoch (Berlin, 1812)[204]. Of Hufeland’s witness to the general superiority of the Naturgemässe Lebensweise the following sentences are sufficiently representative:
“The more man follows Nature and obeys her laws the longer will he live. The further he removes from them (je weiter er von ihnen abweicht) the shorter will be his duration of existence.... Only inartificial, simple nourishment promotes health and long life, while mixed and rich foods but shorten our existence.... We frequently find a very advanced old age amongst men who from youth upwards have lived, for the most part, upon the vegetable diet, and, perhaps, have never tasted flesh.”[205]
XXXV.
RITSON. 1761–1830.
KNOWN to the world generally as an eminent antiquarian and, in particular, as one of the earliest and most acute investigators of the sources of English romantic poetry, for future times his best and enduring fame will rest upon his at present almost forgotten Moral Essay upon Abstinence—one of the most able and philosophical of the ethical expositions of anti-kreophagy ever published.
His birthplace was Stockton in the county of Durham. By profession a conveyancer, he enjoyed leisure for literary pursuits by his income from an official appointment. During the twenty years from 1782 to 1802 his time and talents were incessantly employed in the publication of his various works, antiquarian and critical. His first notable critique was his Observations on Warton’s History of English Poetry, in the shape of a letter to the author (1782), in which his critical zeal seems to have been in excess of his literary amenity. Of other literary productions may be enumerated his Remarks on the Commentators of Shakspere; A Select Collection of English Songs, with a Historical Essay on the Origin and Progress of National Songs (1783); Ancient Songs from the Time of King Henry III. to the Revolution (1790), reprinted in 1829—perhaps the most valuable of his archæological labours; The English Anthology (1793); Ancient English Metrical Romances, and Bibliographia Poetica, a catalogue of English poets from the 12th to the 16th century, inclusive, with short notices of their works. These are only some of the productions of his industry and genius.
We give the origin of his adhesion to the Humanitarian Creed as recorded by himself in one of the chapters of his Essay, in which, also, he introduces the name of an ardent and well-known humanitarian reformer:—