Part 5

FRANCIS’S Horace, lib. 2. sat. 2.

Relaxed fibres, quite benumbed by a sedentary life, sometimes require a gentle stimulus; therefore a mild seasoning is not to be disapproved of, as salt, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg; and such agreeable aromaticks of our own country as every man cultivates in his garden, thyme, sweet-marjoram, fennil, chervil, and others of the like nature: but those are to be avoided which stimulate with a sharp salt or oil, that nature can scarcely overcome. I hate garlick as much as HORACE himself; nor do I better like pepper and mustard, which are pernicious for their parching oils: but I advise you, however, not to make an immoderate use of the milder sort of seasonings, but use them as remedies, and not for a constancy; for their frequent irritation increases frictions, wastes the fibres, and shortens life.

There are other helps to digestion, and the chief of these is exact mastication, which greatly forwards the work of the stomach: this is highly recommended by physicians; but slighted by others very foolishly, and greatly to their own prejudice. It both increases the secretion of the saliva, which is the best menstruum of the aliments, and, whilst it divides the latter into minute particles, it increases their superficies, whence they are more easily penetrated by the gastric juices; consequently there is a quicker digestion, a more compleat solution, no spontaneous corruption, no irritating of the stomach. Therefore let not the learned despise mastication, or rather not forget it, whilst at their meals they are, by a pernicious habit, intent upon other things: whether they read or meditate, the stomach suffers, because the nerves languish when the mind thinks attentively, and experience proves to the very eyes themselves, that digestion is badly performed when the nerves languish; for upon binding the nerves of the stomach, the illustrious HALLER, who made so many extraordinary discoveries, often saw the aliments totally corrupted, instead of being digested.

Digestion is performed slowly in men of learning, therefore fresh aliments should seldom be given them; because the state of the stomach is very different when it is half full of undigested aliments, from what it is when entirely void of aliments, and overflowed with the gastric fluids, ready for the use of concoction. Therefore to make three meals a day, one somewhat considerable, the other two rather slight, will be sufficient for men of learning. The following order with regard to eating, or rather living, pleases me highly, and is recommended by the experience of numbers: Upon rising in the morning a studious person should drink a glass of pure water; in about an hour after he should breakfast; six hours after he should dine, having first past one hour in walking; after dinner he should allow himself an hour or two of leisure, because to sit down to study immediately after eating is highly pernicious: his supper should be light; for this, there are reasons of the greatest weight, because, as I observed before, sleep occasions a dangerous plethora in the head; therefore the fullness of the vessels should not be increased before sleep by too large a meal: add to this, that the functions of the nerves are suspended during the time of sleep, and they cannot perform digestion; at last a soft and refreshing slumber is produced by the absence of all irritation: but if the stomach is overloaded with aliments, the sleep is interrupted, as the nerves are continually affected by the irritation of digestion. Hence a plentiful supper causes a heaviness in the head, sleep is disturbed, digestion interrupted, the strength impaired, and the health entirely destroyed. But a Platonic supper is praised, because it is not only agreeable at the time, but the day following.

Nam corpus onustum Hesternis vitiis animum quoque prægravat una, Atque affigit humo divinæ particulam auræ. Alter, ubi dicto citius curata sopori Membra dedit, vegetus præscripta ad munia surgit.

The body too, with yesterday’s excess Burthen’d and tir’d, shall the pure soul depress; Weigh down this portion of celestial birth, This breath of God, and fix it to the earth. Who down to sleep from a short supper lies, Can to the next day’s business vigorous rise.

FRANCIS’S Horace, lib. 2. sat. 2.

Most learned professors, you well know him, whom as a colleague you all loved, that eminent man, who, when he had broke his constitution by a profound study of antiquities, history, and both the civil and common law, restored it considerably by the simple remedy of supping upon milk.

Not to sup at all, however, is dangerous; for the nerves of the learned are moveable, and easily irritated; and if the chyle is not soon renewed by a supply of new aliments, such is the acrimony of the blood, already often subdued by the strength of the viscera, that it is an irritation of the nerves, which totally destroys the sleep. The example of AUGUSTUS CÆSAR, who was very moderate in eating, is very properly proposed to the learned, as is likewise that of the illustrious LEWIS CORNARO, who restored his ruined health by a regular diet alone; and eating but the fourth part of the quantity of victuals eaten by his fellow-citizens, lived to an advanced age, vigorous and chearful. Long since BARTHOLUS, one of the most eminent lawyers, and a man well versed in polite literature, reduced the quantity of his food and liquor to a certain weight, and by that means preserved his intellectual faculties unimpaired during the whole course of his life. A regular diet is capable of effecting every thing: studious men, however, whilst they take care of their health, ought not to forget, that a man, who is well, should not so confine himself to rules, as not to break through them, when he thinks proper: for a constant habit is real slavery: and I have known several learned and studious men, who were so scrupulous with regard to their hours of eating and going to bed, that their minds seemed to be chained to their bodies, which is the most shameful sort of servitude: nor can he be said to be either a lover of virtue or of learning, who cannot pursue his studies if he be obliged to wait a little longer than usual for his meals, if he has not slept quite enough, or if the air be too hot or too cold.

I have hitherto spoke only of solid food; liquors are not to be forgotten. In the last age a grievous error crept into physic, that health is the better, the more fluid the blood is; and by the advice of BONTEKOE chiefly a pernicious custom prevailed of drinking warm liquors both night and day, whereby the human species has greatly suffered, and those of the present age sorely lament the injury which their forefathers sustained in the last, by impairing the strength of their nerves.

Grave authors, who knew better, and chiefly the illustrious DUNCAN, with BOERHAAVE, and the whole school of Leyden, have proscribed this error; and, if they have not reformed the abuse, have at least greatly checked it. But most valetudinarians still lie under the same prepossession, and, looking upon an over thick blood as the source of their disorders, have recourse to warm beverages, which others reject. It can scarce be told, it can scarce be believed, how many disorders proceed from this source: and I will take upon me to assert, that those pernicious bowls, overflowing with warm liquors, are the true box of Pandora, without even hope remaining at the bottom; for they are prolific sources of hypochondriac melancholy, which both adds strength to and is itself one of the worst of disorders. Nor is it to be wondered at, if warm beverages are more hurtful to studious men, who are naturally weak and feeble, than to others; for they are not troubled with an over thick, but, on the contrary, with too thin a blood. You are well aware, respectable auditors, that the density of the blood is as the motion of the solids: the fibres of the learned are relaxed, their motions are slow, and their blood of consequence thin. Bleed a ploughman and a doctor at the same time: from the first there will flow a thick blood, resembling inflammatory blood, almost solid, and of a deep red; the blood of the second will be either of a faint red, or without any colour, soft, gelatinous, and will almost entirely turn to water. Your blood therefore, men of learning, should not be dissolved, but brought to a consistence; and you should in general be moderate in the article of drinking, and cautiously avoid warm liquors.

The blood flows with difficulty in weak persons, stagnates, obstructs, not on account of its own density, but by the feeble contraction of the vessels, which is increased by hard drinking. The stomach first feels the disorder; because the liquors prepared by nature for the business of digestion, being immersed in the liquors that are drank, become unable to perform their functions, and the food is imperfectly dissolved on account of the imperfection of the menstruums. The fibres of the stomach, being too much stretched, at first give pain, and soon after lose their force, and become unable to push forward the aliments: they therefore load the stomach by being stopped: to cure which the sick persons again have recourse to drinking, which with the force of a torrent drives these half-digested aliments to the intestines. All these symptoms grow worse if warm beverages are drank; for this is the force of heat, it both relaxes the fibres, and, by more powerfully dissolving the phlegm, occasions more severe pains in the stomach.

Amongst the favourite beverages of the learned, the worst is the infusion of that famous leaf, so well known by the name of tea, which, to our great detriment, has every year, for these two centuries past, been constantly imported from China and Japan. This most pernicious gift first destroys the strength of the stomach, and, if it be not soon laid aside, equally destroys that of the viscera, the blood, the nerves; and of the whole body; so that malignant and all chronical disorders will appear to increase, especially nervous disorders, in proportion as the use of tea becomes common: and you may easily form a judgment from the diseases that prevail in every country, whether the inhabitants of it are lovers of tea, or the contrary. How happy would it be for Europe, if by unanimous consent the importation of this infamous leaf were prohibited, which is endued only with a corrosive force, derived from the acrimony of the gum with which it is pregnant: for experience shews, that what it has of an astringent principle is lost in the warm water.

I will not pass the same censure, though I must pass some censure, upon that celebrated beverage coffee, which both hurts by the power of the warm water, and by irritating; for nature cannot use itself to irritation without suffering. It is however rendered powerful by a nutritious flour, and by a bitter and strengthening aromatic oil; so that it may well be laid up in apothecaries shops as an useful remedy, but is improperly used in kitchens as part of our daily food. It raises the spirits, eases the stomach when loaded with phlegm, cures the head-ach, causes a chearfulness of mind, and, if we may believe some people, increases its penetration; for which reason the learned are so fond of it. But was coffee used by HOMER, THUCIDIDES, PLATO, XENOPHON, LUCRETIUS, VIRGIL, OVID, HORACE, PETRONIUS, and the other great men of antiquity, who as much excelled us in genius, as we surpass them in experience and knowledge of nature.

Warm liquors being therefore justly set aside, cold water should be used, which has as much power in strengthening as the former in weakening the body.

Wine deserves its share of praise; but I have the same opinion concerning wine, with respect to the learned, that I have in regard to coffee, that it should be used as a remedy, and not as a drink. The Creator gave pure water as the universal drink, which he made a menstruum to all sorts of food, and agreeable to all palates: it should be chosen cold, soft, and mild; for it both strengthens and cleanses the viscera. Hence it has been generally looked upon as a panacea both by the Greeks and Romans, and it is the best of remedies when dryness prevails, or bile or acidity are in too great quantity. Digestion will be more easy, sleep sweeter, the head seldomer clouded, and the strength greater, if, laying aside wine, we quench our thirst with pure water alone.

Wine has one fault that renders it exceeding hurtful to the learned; it forces the blood into the brain, and increases the several disorders thereof, head-achs, megrim, and the like, which are hardly to be cured without laying aside the use of wine: all these disorders are wonderfully removed by drinking water, which prevents too great a quantity of blood from being gathered in the head. What wonder is it then if it increases the intellectual powers, and if those who drink water alone have a more tenacious memory, a more lively imagination, and quicker perceptions than others. The abstemiousness of DEMOSTHENES is a great example in favour of drinking water, which has likewise this virtue, it in a surprising manner subdues those catarrhs with which the learned are so often troubled, and which the use of wine is apt to increase. They have often acid eructations; but wine sharpens an acidity, water dulls it.

I will solemnly own, that I have cured more nervous disorders, (and learned men are generally troubled with such) by retrenching the quantity of liquor, forbidding all warm beverages, as well as wine, and recommending exercise, than by any other remedies. Nor should the danger of leaving off what people have been used to, be alledged: there is no such danger; or, if there be, it is easily avoided by a gradual disuse.

But take notice, if sometimes the too great laxity of the stomach, the great weakness of the body, and the depression of the spirits, require a remedy to brace, to strengthen, to excite, to exhilarate; wine is the most proper. In vain would you seek a more expeditious and agreeable medicine than this through the three kingdoms of nature: but let it be generous and smooth, and such as may vie with Falernian wine:

Quod curas abigat, quod cum spe divite manet In venas, animumque meum, quod verba ministret.

My wines of generous and of smoother kind, To drive away my cares, and to the soul, Through the full veins, with golden hopes to roll. With flowing language to inspire my tongue, And make the list’ning fair one think me young.

FRANCIS’S Hor. lib. 1. ep. 15.

But avoid those small wines which have less of the nature of wine than vinegar, and rather irritate than strengthen. Remember that wine is an antidote against the miseries of life and the tediousness of idleness; cares are banished by wine, whilst the reason is intoxicated: but does such a drink become the learned? And this puts me in mind of another sort of intoxication, I mean that caused by smoking tobacco, which abounds with an acrimonious salt and sulphur, together with a narcotic oil. I have elsewhere enlarged upon the folly of smoking; here I shall add more concisely, that the narcotic principle hurts the stomach, causes a stuffing up of the head, head-achs, vertigos, anxiety, lethargy, apoplexy, and finally all the effects of opium, as the great Lord BACON has observed. Tobacco, says he, the use of which herb has greatly prevailed in the present age, is a species of henbane; it is evident that it disturbs the head like opiates. Therefore, young men, avoid a dirty pleasure, equally injurious both to your health and your studies, and which should be left to those who have recourse to it for the killing of time. The muses fly those studies that smell like a stable, and delight in a purer air; for one of the chief sources of health or sickness is the air which environs us, in which we live, and by which not only our bodies are affected, but whose power our very minds experience. Thus the air of Bœotia, or Thrace, rendered dull those whom that of Athens revived:

Bœotum in crasso jurares ære natum.

Take him to books and poetry, you’ll swear This king was born in thick Bœotian air.

FRANCIS’S Hor. lib. 2. ep. 1.

Prudent men will chuse as pure, as warm, and as dry an air as they can; for such an one, by giving strength to the fibres, is salubrious to the lungs, and promotes the circulation. A frigid and dry air is supportable: a moist air is highly pernicious, as by it all the disorders of studious men are aggravated; for it increases laxity, stops perspiration, and occasions catarrhs, pains, and palsies. Every man of learning has it not in his power to repair to Baya or Alexandria, nor does it suit them all to breathe the country air, which is the purest; for there are more that compile than think. The country is not a proper place to pursue such studies; but any man may chuse a healthy habitation in town, and live in a lightsome house, a high apartment, refreshed by a breeze in summer, and enlightened by the sun in winter. He should take particular care to have fresh air let into his chamber every day; without this precaution he lives upon the infected: it should be cooled in summer, and not kept too warm in winter; for the learned, like all weak men, as was the case of AUGUSTUS, are ill able to bear excess of heat or cold: too great a heat relaxes the nerves, but intense cold causes convulsions. In the dog-days we become unfit for labour, as also in the severe cold of winter; and the more tender the constitution, the less it is able to withstand the weather. Such was that of MILTON, whose nerves were relaxed to such a degree in the heat of summer, that he was almost reduced to a state of imbecillity. But the air should be warmed in winter, a fire being kindled for the purpose; for this fresh air succeeds the corrupt air that goes off; nor do exhalations remain, nor does the head grow warm, nor do the feet become cold, which is of great consequence. Cold in the feet hurts the weak by causing pains in the head, the throat, and the breast; it disorders digestion, causes dreadful colicks, obstructs perspiration, and prevents sleep to a very great degree. I have often cured men of note, who had long been without sleep, though they had recourse to the most efficacious remedies, by advising them to warm the soles of their feet at a fire, every night before they went to bed, till the sense of heat became painful. Others have been greatly relieved by a gently stimulating plaster applied to the soles of their feet, and left on both night and day.

I may probably, respectable auditors, appear to descend too much to particulars, and to dwell too long upon trifles; but nothing is little or inconsiderable in physick: and it is a thing of so much importance to keep the blood from the heads of men of learning, that they should neglect nothing which may contribute to this end. They should therefore take care not to keep it warm with too much covering, or rather they should use themselves to go bare-headed from their childhood. Some men of learning have been so bold as to wrap their heads with a towel dipt in cold water, that they might be able to continue the longer at their studies: and what will not an inordinate desire of knowledge excite men to? Such rashness should be avoided; but it is of service to all, and especially to studious, sedentary men, to wash their ears, their faces, and their whole heads, hair and all, every morning in cold water. It is very good for the literati, when they feel the blood forced up into their heads, not to walk, or inquire sollicitously after medicines, but to sit upon their chair in total inaction, without ever uttering a word.