Part 5

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.'

THE END.

R. NOBLE. Printer, Old Bailey.

NOTES.

Hinc tibi, quae semper vicino ab limine sepes Hyblaeis apibus florem depasta salicti, Saepe levi somnum suadebit inire susurro. VIRG.

May not the heat, and want of perspiration, depend on an exhausted irritability of the subcutaneous vessels, which will be accumulated by the method here recommended?

Oxygen gas, according to the new Nomenclature.

The fixed air, or carbonic acid gas, formed during the combustion, having been separated by agitation in contact with lime water.

Strictly speaking, water is composed of the bases of these airs, the greatest part of the caloric being given out on their union.

Where manufactures are carried on to a great extent, the air is rendered still worse, and every precaution ought to be used to preserve the health of the inhabitants. Places where manufactures are carried on, ought, therefore, to be constructed in such a manner as to be very lofty, and capable of being easily ventilated. Night-working is undoubtedly a perversion of the laws of nature, renders the constitution feeble, and lays a foundation for bad health and disease: for it not only gives no time for ventilation, and in consequence the quantity of oxygen becomes more and more exhausted; but the number of candles used, contributes very much to contaminate the air. It has been found by experiment that a candle contaminates more air than a man. By persons who are interested in the welfare of the succeeding generations, night-work will never be urged, and it will be right to ventilate the manufactories every night, as well as during breakfast and dinner.

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Lately published, Elegantly printed in Two Volumes Quarto, and illustrated by a Map and Fifty-two Plates, from Drawings taken on the Spot by W. H. Watts, who accompanied the Author in the Tour, Price 2l. 12s. 6d. in Boards,

OBSERVATIONS on a TOUR through the HIGHLANDS and Part of the WESTERN ISLES of SCOTLAND, particularly STAFFA and ICOLMKILL: To which are added, a Description of the Falls of the Clyde, of the Country round Moffat, and an Analysis of its Mineral Waters.

By T. GARNETT, M.D.

Member of the Royal Medical, Physical, and Natural History Societies of Edinburgh; the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester; the Medical Society of London; the Royal Irish Academy; and Professor of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry in the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

Printed for T. Cadell, jun. and W. Davies, Strand.

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Transcriber's Notes.

The frontispiece contains the following text, and a portrait of the author:

Engraved by J. Hopwood, from a picture by J. R. Smith. THOMAS GARNETT, M.D. Published March 25th 1800, by Cadell & Davies, Strand.

In line 241 of this text, the word transcribed as too appears as o in the original text, with blank space indicating the omission of the first two letters of the word. In Lecture IX of Dr. Garnett's Zoonomia, where the same example of the reaction of the eye to light is given, the word appears as too.