A Lecture on the Preservation of Health

by Thomas Garnett

But though the excitability be in this way exhausted, it will in the course of a day or two be again accumulated, and it may, perhaps, be suspected that this exhaustion can do no harm to the constitution; but this is a premature conclusion, and quite contrary to fact and experience, as well as to reason; for, just in the same manner that a pendulum, made to vibrate in the arc of a circle, will never return exactly to the same height, but fall a little short of it every time; so, though the excitability may be again accumulated, it never can be brought back to what it was before; and every fresh debauch will shorten life, probably two or three weeks at least, besides debilitating the body, and bringing on a variety of diseases, with premature old age.

Those who drink only a moderate quantity of wine, so as to make them cheerful, as they call it, but not absolutely to intoxicate, may imagine that it will do them no harm. The strong and robust may enjoy the pleasures of the bottle and table with seeming impunity, and sometimes for many years may not find any bad effects from them; but depend upon it, if a full diet of animal food be every day indulged in, with only a moderate portion of wine, its baneful influence will blast the vigour of the strongest constitution.

While we are eating, water is the best beverage. The custom of drinking fermented liquors, and particularly wine, during dinner, is a very pernicious one. The idea that it assists digestion, is false; those who are acquainted with chemistry know, that food is hardened, and rendered less digestible by these means, and the stimulus which wine gives to the stomach is not necessary, excepting to those who have exhausted the excitability of that organ by the excessive use of strong liquors. In these. The stomach can scarcely be excited to any action without the assistance of such a stimulus. If food wants diluting, water is the best diluent, and will prevent the rising, as it is called, of strong food, much better than wine or spirits.

Before I finish this subject, I shall say a few words on the pernicious custom of suffering children to drink wine, or other fermented liquors. Nothing is more common than to see, even very young children come to the table after dinner, to drink a glass of wine. The least quantity produces violent effects on their accumulated excitability, and by quickly exhausting it, ruins their constitutions through life, and often renders them habitual drinkers.

I can scarcely help attributing in some degree the many stomach complaints we meet with, among young people in the present age, and which were unknown to our forefathers, to the abominable practice of suffering children to drink fermented, or spirituous liquors. You must all have observed how soon children are intoxicated and inflamed by spirituous liquors; you may judge then, that if these liquors be only a slow poison to us, they are a very quick one to them. A glass of wine, on account of the accumulated excitability of children, will have more effect upon them, than a bottle will have upon an adult accustomed to drink wine. If therefore, the health of a child, and its happiness through life be an object, never suffer it to taste fermented, or spirituous liquors, till it be fifteen or sixteen years of age, unless a little wine be necessary as a medicine.

It now only remains for me to take some notice of exercise. Of all the various methods of preserving health, and of preventing diseases, which nature has suggested, there is none more efficacious than exercise; it puts the fluids all in motion, strengthens the solids, promotes perspiration, and occasions the decomposition of a larger quantity of atmospheric air in the lungs. Hence, in order to preserve the health of the body, the author of nature has made exercise absolutely necessary to the greater part of mankind for obtaining the means of existence.—Had not exercise been absolutely necessary for our well-being, says the elegant Addison, nature would not have made the body so proper for it, by giving such an activity to the limbs, and such a pliancy to every part, as necessarily produce those compressions, extensions, contortions, dilatations, and all other kinds of motions, that are necessary for the preservation of such a system of tubes and glands.—And that we might not want inducement to engage us in such exercise of the body as is proper for its welfare, it is so ordered, that nothing valuable can be procured without it. Not to mention riches and honors, even food and raiment are not to be come at without the toil of the hands and sweat of the brow. Providence furnishes materials, but expects that we should work them up ourselves. The earth must be laboured before it gives its increase, and when it is forced into its several products, how many hands must they pass through before they are fit for use? Manufactures, trade, and agriculture, naturally employ more than nineteen parts of the species out of twenty; and as for those who are not obliged to labour by the condition in which they are born, they are more miserable than the rest of mankind, unless they indulge themselves in that voluntary labour which goes by the name of exercise.

Of all the different kinds of exercise, there is none that conduces so much to health as riding; it is not attended with the fatigue of walking, and the free air is more enjoyed in this way than by any other mode of exercise. Where it cannot be used, walking, or exercise in a carriage, ought to be substituted.

The best time for taking exercise is before dinner, for the body is then more vigorous and alert, and the mind more cheerful, and better disposed to enjoy the pleasure of a ride or walk. Exercise after a full meal disturbs digestion, and causes painful sensations in the stomach and bowels, with heart-burn, and acid eructations.

But whatever mode of exercise you use, it ought not at first to be too violent. Dr. Armstrong has given us an excellent rule—

'Begin with gentle toils, and as your nerves 'grow firm, to hardier, by just steps aspire. 'The prudent, even in every moderate walk, 'at first but saunter, and by slow degrees 'increase their pace.'