THE SEDENTARY.
Though nothing can be more contrary to the nature of man than a sedentary life, yet this class comprehends by far the greater part of the species. Almost the whole female world, and in manufacturing countries, the major part of the males, may be reckoned sedentary[[25]].
Agriculture, the first and most healthful of all employments, is now followed by few who are able to carry on any other business. But those who imagine that the culture of the earth is not sufficient to employ all its inhabitants are greatly mistaken. An ancient Roman, we are told, could maintain his family from the produce of one acre of ground. So might a modern Briton, if he would be contented to live like a Roman. This shews what an immense increase of inhabitants Britain might admit of, and all of them live by the culture of the ground.
Agriculture is the great source of domestic riches. Where it is neglected, whatever wealth may be imported from abroad, poverty and misery will abound at home. Such is, and ever will be, the fluctuating state of trade and manufactures, that thousands of people may be in full employment to-day, and in beggary to-morrow. This can never happen to those who cultivate the ground. They can eat the fruit of their labour, and can always by industry obtain, at least, the necessaries of life.
Though sedentary employments are necessary, yet there seems to be no reason why any person should be confined for life to these alone. Were such employments intermixed with the more active and laborious, they would never do hurt. It is constant confinement that ruins the health. A man may not be hurt by sitting five or six hours a-day; but if he is obliged to sit ten or twelve, he will soon become diseased.
But it is not want of exercise alone which hurts sedentary people; they likewise suffer from the confined air which they breathe. It is very common to see ten or a dozen taylors[[26]], or staymakers, for example, crowded into one small apartment, where there is hardly room for one person to breathe freely. In this situation they generally continue for many hours at a time, often with the addition of several candles, which tend likewise to waste the air, and render it less fit for respiration. Air that is breathed repeatedly becomes unfit for expanding the lungs. This is one cause of the phthisical coughs, and other complaints of the breath, so incident to sedentary artificers.
Even the perspiration from a great number of persons pent up together, renders the air unwholesome. The danger from this quarter will be greatly increased, if any one of them happens to have bad lungs, or to be otherwise diseased. Those who sit near him, being forced to breathe the same air, can hardly fail to be infected. It would be a rare thing, however, to find a dozen of sedentary people all in good health. The danger of crowding them together must therefore be evident to every one.
Many of those who follow sedentary employments are constantly in a bending posture, as shoemakers, taylors, cutlers, &c. Such a situation is extremely hurtful. A bending posture obstructs all the vital motions, and of course must destroy the health. Accordingly we find such artificers generally complaining of indigestions, flatulencies, head-achs, pains of the breast, &c.
The aliment in sedentary people, instead of being pushed forwards by an erect posture, and the action of the muscles, is in a manner confined in the bowels. Hence indigestions, costiveness, wind, and other hypochondriacal affections, the constant companions of the sedentary. Indeed none of the excretions can be duly performed where exercise is wanting; and when the matter which ought to be discharged in this way is retained too long in the body, it must have bad effects, as it is again taken up into the mass of humours.
A bending posture is likewise hurtful to the lungs. When this organ is compressed, the air cannot have free access into all its parts, so as to expand them properly. Hence tubercles, adhesions, &c. are formed, which often end in consumptions. Besides, the proper action of the lungs being absolutely necessary for making good blood, when that organ fails, the humours soon become universally depraved, and the whole constitution goes to wreck.