During epidemics, that confident assurance which some persons are known to entertain, that they will escape the prevalent distempers, there is much reason to think, has on many occasions been a complete prophylactic or preventive.
Instances are not uncommon where an assurance or settled conviction on the part of the patient has gone far to promote, if not to produce, recovery from very dangerous disease, when physicians have despaired of life, and even when that opinion has been communicated to the unmoved and still confident sufferer.
The history of amulets or charms and of the cures performed by the royal touch, affords much amusing and interesting detail illustrative of confidence and hope, in the prevention and cure of disease. Instances are also familiar of naval and military officers who have lost their health from the long continued suffering of “hope deferred” in respect to promotion, and of neglect of meritorious services, where advancement and the grant of their longing and earnest wishes has at length acted as a charm upon every bodily ailment, and where a rapid succession of cheerfulness and health has been the immediate consequence, to the joy of anxious and apprehensive friends.
The beneficial effects of activity and cheerfulness of mind in warding off the attack of disease, and in promoting recovery therefrom, having been so strikingly illustrated in the above examples, there remains no occasion to say more than to recommend them strongly for adoption, both among those in health and in sickness.
CLOTHING.
The want of sufficient clothing as productive of disease has been already noticed.
Clothing in this climate is used for the purpose of retaining the body warm. Now this is an important purpose, and the means by which it is attained are highly deserving of notice, and they exert a very powerful influence upon health.
The temperature of the human body is generally about 98° Fahrenheit, and that of the surrounding atmosphere being in this climate always below, sometimes in severe winters, as for instance the last, being near zero.
Now, all bodies possess a property by which they are disposed to maintain an equilibrium of temperature, that is, to be of the same amount of heat, and the temperature of the human body being above that of the surrounding atmosphere, in an amount varying at different times, it parts with a portion of its heat, or caloric, as it is called by chemists, which is communicated to the atmosphere and surrounding bodies.
A portion of the heat of the body is constantly, and under all circumstances, being abstracted by the atmosphere and other surrounding bodies which are at a lower temperature, and were it not that the loss of heat, which the body is thus constantly sustaining, is supplied by the formation of heat in the system, which is ever going on, the body would soon become so very cold as to be incapable of performing its functions, and death would consequently ensue.