An essay on diseases incidental to literary and sedentary persons

by S. A. D. Tissot

It cannot indeed be denied, that there are men whom nature has endow’d with a Milonian stomach, and intestines of iron, who can bear with impunity the labour of the mind, bodily inaction, and excesses of gluttony. But are they therefore more happy? By no means; for then the vessels are overwhelm’d by the load of humours, the cellular membrane swells with fat, the viscera are press’d on every side, the whole habit grows turgid, they become heavy and indolent, the slightest motion puts them quite out of breath, and they sweat all over; at last they die before their time, either of apoplexy, a suffocating catarrh, or other diseases occasion’d by plethora: and it has been justly observ’d, that too strong a stomach has often prov’d fatal to the learned[31].

There is no part of the body which is not at last affected by inaction; for the blood being vitiated, all the parts, which it washes, catch the infection sooner or later; the lungs are overwhelm’d with a mucous substance, this gives rise to a cough, a shortness of breath, an asthma, an imposthume. This the illustrious Triglandus unhappily experienc’d, who, having contracted a bad habit of body by a studious and sedentary life, from which Boerhaave himself dissuaded him, wasted away with an imposthume and died, after having suffer’d the most excruciating torments[32]. By the mucous matter being harden’d the lungs of Swammerdam were turn’d into a quarry, and he spit up small stones a long time before his death.

That the stone, and other severer disorders of the bladder, are the fruits of too assiduous an application to learning, is prov’d by the sad experience of Heurnius, Casaubon, Beverovicius, Sydenham, and many others, amongst whom may be reckon’d the illustrious exile of Geneva, to whom Britain now boasts of having afforded an asylum[33].

Whilst all the excretions are disturb’d, the chief of them all, namely cuticular perspiration, is not free from disease. As perspiration is greatly promoted by muscular motion, which both prepares humours for secretion, and gives strength to the exhaling vessels; so is it greatly interrupted by the want of that motion; the humour that ought to be excreted is retain’d, and pollutes the whole mass of the fluids, and gives rise to rheumatic or catarrhous disorders and a troublesome phlegm. Of this Horace complained long since, and with this complaint almost all men of learning are afflicted; for they can scarce read or write for any time, but they are immediately troubled with a slight running of the nose, or seiz’d with a cough.

From the same source are derived those irregular fevers, which often occur without any visible cause, whilst the unperspirable humours, which have been generated by the defect of the stomach, and the want of motion, are unable to pass the cutaneous vessels.

Perpetual rest is alone able to torture those nerves, which have been weakened by the labours of the mind; and it often quite destroys them, even in those who equally give themselves up to indolence both mental and corporeal. For the nervous system is the last work of the human machine, and if any function fails, the nerves are immediately affected; so that often from their defect, whenever it appears, there results a well-grounded suspicion of a disease in the stomach, or in some other part. They are therefore vitiated in the learned for two reasons; for, being plac’d between the mind and body, they are punish’d though innocent, let which of the two be in fault; nor do they however go unrevenged; for the injuries they suffer on one part they carry over to t’other, and thus, by a vicious circle, the mind hurts the body, and the body impairs the mind, and they with one accord injure and weaken the nerves.

The seminal fluid, which has been thought by some great men not to be very different from the nervous liquor, is likewise depriv’d of its force; and upon this principle, and from an accurate consideration of what each part in a father contributes to the formation of a son, it perhaps is not badly accounted for, why strong and illustrious sons are seldom the offspring of illustrious men: for the punctum saliens is contaminated at the first moment of life, whence it receives an injury which is not afterwards to be repair’d by any art; and whilst the mind of the father was entirely given up to meditation, and his corporeal functions totally neglected, the vivifying liquor was perhaps defrauded of that part of elaboration which it should have had from the brain, so as to give a proper tone to the brain of the embryo.

From that general laxity of the fibres, which is demonstrated to the senses themselves by the softness of the muscles, by the force of the artery, and by that laxity of the gums which throws out sound teeth without any pain; from that general laxity, I say, arises that weakness which oppresses so many learned men, and which I lately lamented to see, whilst, as a friend and physician, I sat by our beloved Alphonsus[34], to whom the wishes of the public had promis’d the age of Nestor; and all the hopes I had of his recovering his health were immediately banish’d, by a weakness greater than any I remember ever to have seen, and which the Herculean labours of his mind had brought upon a thin body. How great and irrepairable a loss was then sustain’d by religion, virtue, the church, the city, his unfortunate family, and the youth of this academy! What a man, what a colleague, what a friend have we lost, illustrious professors! one who, as Euphrates of old, was remarkable for the greatest sanctity of manners, for the utmost care in the discharge of all the duties incumbent upon him, which were many in number; one whose complaisance was equal, who was entirely free from austerity, whose presence excited reverence, and not dread, for he was severe upon vices, not upon men; whose learning was extensive, whose discourse was copious, various, and, above all, pleasing, and yet not without a Platonic sublimity; one, in short, who was capable of persuading and working upon such as were most averse to his documents: having liv’d in the utmost veneration, he left behind him the highest regret for his loss. But to return to our subject from this sad digression.