is a Story in the
Arabian Nights Tales
of a King who had long languished under an ill Habit of Body, and had taken abundance of Remedies to no purpose. At length, says the Fable, a Physician cured him by the following Method: He took an hollow Ball of Wood, and filled it with several Drugs; after which he clos'd it up so artificially that nothing appeared. He likewise took a Mall, and after having hollowed the Handle, and that part which strikes the Ball, he enclosed in them several Drugs after the same Manner as in the Ball it self. He then ordered the Sultan, who was his Patient, to exercise himself early in the Morning with these
rightly prepared
Instruments, till such time as he should Sweat: When, as the Story goes, the Vertue of the Medicaments perspiring through the Wood, had so good an Influence on the Sultan's Constitution, that they cured him of an Indisposition which all the Compositions he had taken inwardly had not been able to remove. This Eastern Allegory is finely contrived to shew us how beneficial bodily Labour is to Health, and that Exercise is the most effectual Physick. I have described in
[my Hundred and Fifteenth Paper]
, from the general Structure and Mechanism of an Human Body, how absolutely necessary Exercise is for its Preservation. I shall in this Place recommend another great Preservative of Health, which in many Cases produces the same Effects as Exercise, and may, in some measure, supply its Place, where Opportunities of Exercise are wanting. The Preservative I am speaking of is Temperance, which has those particular Advantages above all other Means of Health, that it may be practised by all Ranks and Conditions, at any Season or in any Place. It is a kind of Regimen into which every Man may put himself, without Interruption to Business, Expence of Mony, or Loss of Time. If Exercise throws off all Superfluities, Temperance prevents them; if Exercise clears the Vessels, Temperance neither satiates nor overstrains them; if Exercise raises proper Ferments in the Humours, and promotes the Circulation of the Blood, Temperance gives Nature her full Play, and enables her to exert her self in all her Force and Vigour; if Exercise dissipates a growing Distemper, Temperance starves it.