Part 6

The same necessity of keeping the blood from the head should prevent the learned from indulging in sleep after dinner; or, if they should sometimes be forced to yield to sleep, let them imitate the illustrious personage, so often mentioned already, AUGUSTUS CÆSAR, who with the cloaths and shoes he had on took a short nap, having covered his eyes with his hand. I must likewise add this caution, that they should never compose themselves to sleep, without first unbinding all their ligatures. To wash their feet in warm water is likewise of great service to them.

These are the chief helps by the assistance of which the learned will be enabled to prevent the ill effects of study; but when their application has produced real disorders, they will have occasion for other remedies. You will sometimes see them, when nature is quite exhausted by study, fall into a consumption: then the severity of the disorder requires some efficacious remedy; and the best is entirely to lay aside study, meditation, and books, to bid a long farewell to their musæums, and, giving themselves up to leisure, chearfulness, and country pleasures, to think of restoring their bodies alone, without troubling their heads about cultivating their minds; but let them become what men were designed for by nature, ploughmen or gardeners.

Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem, Difficile est: verum hoc, qua lubet, efficias. Una salus hæc est, hoc est tibi pervincendum.

CATULL. 82.

It is a difficult matter to divest one’s self suddenly of a passion of a long standing: but this you may effect, if you desire it. This is the only thing that can preserve you, this you must endeavour to bring about at any rate.

How sure should we be of curing the disorders of men of learning, if it were possible to lull thought asleep. Here generous wines are of great service, provided the lungs are still unaffected, and a slow heat does not burn up the veins. Wholesome meats, and well boiled aliments, are of great service: milk is likewise of great service, provided the stomach is able to bear it. Riding is also useful. And it may be beneficial to purge away the peccant matter by some gentle, strengthening remedy. BACON recommends rhubarb. CELSUS, with more reason as I apprehend, recommended aloes, the use of which is of great service to the learned. Let them not, however, abuse an excellent remedy; for, though purges are sometimes necessary, they are dangerous when too frequently used: for the body begins to be disused to nourishment, and must of consequence grow weak. But beware, you sick men, of too violent purging remedies; because, as the intestines are often covered with mucus, this mucus is generally soft, and easily removed; when it is removed, a softer sort succeeds in its place; this badly defends the villous coat of the intestines; and, when it is left without defence, it either occasions incessant pains, or should be continually fomented by the tenderest sort of food.

The Peruvian bark or kinkina is here of the greatest efficacy imaginable; in this case there is not a better remedy; it restores digestion, strengthens the vessels, compresses the fluids, promotes secretions, and, above all, perspiration, repairs the strength of the nerves, and quells false motions. One of our most eminent geometricians soon repaired his wasted powers by a large draught of the decoction of kinkina, which he had constantly by his side.

If the constitution be not yet entirely broke, weakness oppresses the stomach and the nerves, the learned are troubled with hysteric symptoms, often attended with a vertigo, fainting fits, suffocation, and anxiety. They are to be cured like women who are troubled with hysterics, occasioned by mobility and want of tone in the fibres; they are to be cured, I say, by bitters, ferulacious gums, myrrh, steel, and the cold bath. The frequent use of the latter preserves a good state of health, and repairs a broken constitution; for it is efficacious above all other remedies, except there be already an extraordinary degree of weakness, in strengthening the stomach, the nerves, and the whole body; it restores sleep, produces a chearfulness and serenity of mind, and supplies new strength to pursue new studies. This made the ancients set so high a value upon it, that, even amidst the avocations of their necessary business, they never failed to bathe every day: and I most earnestly recommend to the literati the frequent use of bathing. I am not ignorant that the ancients often used the warm bath, but they used it as a remedy after exercise or fatigue; and it generally agrees very well with the robust and active; but they restored their strength with cold baths. AUGUSTUS, who received no benefit from the warm bath, when affected with great weakness of body, was advised to have recourse to the cold bath by ANTONIUS MUSA. Cold baths are salutary to delicate constitutions, and the health of the learned is generally, though not always, as much hurt by bathing in warm water, as promoted by bathing in cold.

Friction in a great measure produces the same effects with bathing; for if the whole lower belly of a person, whilst he lies supine in bed in the morning, with bent knees and an empty stomach, be rubbed all over with a rough cloth, he will be greatly benefited by it: by this artifice the motion in the abdomen is increased, the stagnant juices are thrown out, the secretions are increased, the excrements are prevented from staying too long in the body, and innumerable diseases are cured, which, as you have been frequently told, are caused by a slow circulation. If the skin is rubbed all over, either with a cloth or a flesh-brush, the cuticular secretion is greatly promoted, the circulation of the blood is so quickened, that a violent fever may be caused by rubbing alone, the motion is increased in the smallest vessels, the strength is repaired, and the ills caused by want of exercise are partly remedied. The ancients were therefore right in setting a great value upon friction: it was afterwards unhappily neglected; but the English physicians revived it with great success; and there is no class of men to whom it may be of greater service than to the studious. I would, however, recommend to them not to use this kind of exercise till they have read what CELSUS and GALEN have written concerning it.

There is another sort of remedy, which is often of the highest service to men of learning, I mean chalybeate waters; but they should not send for them, they should go where they are to be drunk at the fountain head. I do not indeed despise those that are sent for; nay, I have known men of learning who, by my advice, drank Seltzer waters at home during the whole year, by which, and remitting somewhat of their application, they recovered their health. But it is still better to drink them at their source, for they are there in greater perfection; and the journey is of service, because, whilst it lasts, the sick are exempt from all domestick cares, are amused with a variety of objects, enjoy agreeable company, relax their minds, and recreate their bodies: and the journey alone is of so much service, that hypochondriac persons are often cured by visiting remote libraries.

It would be as useless as it is impossible to enumerate all the waters that may be of service in repairing broken constitutions; for what nature intended as a most salutary remedy, it has liberally bestowed upon most regions. There are many in Switzerland; those of Aquia in Savoy, in my neighbourhood, deserve high praises; our waters of Rotula are still more to be recommended on account of the agreeableness of the place than their salubrious qualities; we must not forget those of Lausanne, the virtues of which have been demonstrated to me both by analysis and frequent observation; but the Seltzer waters surpass them all, at least in their reputation, if not in their qualities; those of Schwalbach and Spaw are still more powerful; and the Pyrmont waters are inferior to none.

These are not all, but the principal remedies by which those disorders may be cured which men of learning bring upon themselves by over great application: but their disorders are not occasioned by study alone: as men they are subject to all the disorders of men; and then they should be treated according to the rules laid down by experience for curing each disorder. Physicians, however, should never forget, that the patient, whom they have under their care, is a man of learning, and cannot, of consequence, have the same strength with which most other men are endued: as they have relaxed fibres and thin blood, they are not so capable of bearing phlebotomy: but the intestines are often filled with a collection of filth, which must be purged off; so that, as the illustrious RAMAZZINI has long since observed, it is better to have recourse to other evacuations with them than to bleeding.

Care should be always taken of the head of a learned patient, because it is easily disturbed, and grows delirious. This is of very bad consequence in disorders; for peevishness increases, which few learned patients are without; and, whilst the brain is agitated by a delirium, the necessary action of the nerves upon the body becomes slow, and so the powers of nature, which can alone effect a cure, are destroyed.

If the patient was afflicted before with nervous disorders, these soon cause sufferings of a peculiar sort: the learned, when they are ill, cannot bear too much light, nor noise, nor a crowd of spectators. I have often seen, upon the fever’s beginning to cease, new symptoms occur, which appear to be very bad, but are in fact only nervous.

Men of learning cannot well bear strong and powerful remedies.

Their recovery is always tedious, and it requires extraordinary care: the strength returns slowly; the faculties of the mind, above all, are long in a wavering condition; and I have scarce ever known a man of learning recover out of a disorder, without complaining of his memory’s being impaired, and a sort of weakness of the head discoverable in the face itself. Those little consult their own interest, who immediately return to their studies, and that before their strength is renewed: they prepare to themselves a sore repentance: the ill consequences are felt by their heads, their eyes, and their stomachs, which must greatly suffer, if, whilst they stand in need of the assistance of the nerves, to digest the remedies they take, the mind should at so improper a time make use of them. I have often found, that the exercises of the mind so weaken the sensibility and motion of the stomach and intestines, that the power of purgatives is entirely counteracted by meditation and constant study.

Learned patients, when just out of a disorder, recover their sleep very slowly, and it often is not to be recovered without the assistance of wine, which is of wonderful efficacy in this case, by restoring a due tone to the stomach, debilitated by warm liquors; firmness to the nerves, strength to the whole body, and spirits to the dejected mind.

Thus have I laid open the causes of disorders, their symptoms, and the method of avoiding them: in fine, I have compleated my design to the best of my power; and you with joy perceive my discourse approaching to a conclusion, respectable auditors. I am aware, however, that you will not dismiss me, till I have atoned for a grievous omission; nor do I intend to disappoint your expectation: I shall therefore now discover the grand arcanum of the art of preserving health, which I have hitherto concealed: attend to my words. Chearfulness of temper is the source of health, and a virtuous life is the source of chearfulness: a good conscience, a mind pure and clear of all contagion, are the best preservatives of health; and if the learned were without them, it would be a shame: for of what use is learning without wisdom?

Quid musæ sine moribus Vanæ proficiant?

Of what service are the muses without the aid of virtue?

What else is knowledge but to be wise? Were not the learned in former ages wise? Knowledge alone is of no avail. I have no manner of esteem for those doctors, who inquire what is virtuous and becoming, entirely taken up with moral contemplations, and who, though they see good, follow evil courses. Woe be to them! they will suffer severely for their bad conduct. Consider the force of the passions: those which affect the mind agreeably, promote a good state of health; which those of a contrary nature destroy. But what affects the mind more agreeably than the remembrance of a life well spent?

Omnem crede diem diluxisse supremum.

Look upon every day that’s past as the last of your life.

Cruel remorse of conscience, on the other hand, destroys the powers both of mind and body; because the mind being a prey to grief, such is the will of the Author of nature, the fibres are relaxed, and both health and beauty vanish. I cannot without horror recollect the shocking inquietudes of some men, who, having abused the gifts of God, could not, without inexpressible terror, see death approach, which renders the Deity more awful. On the other hand, I cannot without joy revolve in my memory the happy deaths of some good men, who, as they had passed their whole lives in the practice of virtue, returned with joy to the Fountain of all good, having laid aside their terrestrial covering, and crowned a happy life with a joyful death. How properly does the learned doctor, lately professor of divinity in this academy, occur to me in this place, who, after having suffered the cruel torments of a dreadful disease, during the course of a twelvemonth, with wonderful resolution and patience, after a few friendly and pious conversations with his wife and children, whilst he testified his gratitude to me for my care, and expressed his good wishes, expired with religious composure. And why should I forget you, learned, dear, and now happy uncle and Mentor, who, having lived your whole life, whilst in health, as we promise to live when we are ill, enjoying, to an advanced age, a conscience void of offence, a genius replete with vigour, and faculties acute and penetrating; not only taught us how to live virtuously, but likewise have instructed us how to die well.

But it is time for me to put an end to my wandering discourse; for I am ashamed to detain you any longer, respectable auditors.

Farewell, therefore, most illustrious president, whose extraordinary humanity, gentle manners, and uncorrupt integrity, all are unanimous in praising. How agreeable to me was it to be chosen upon this occasion by you, whose friendship, having so often experienced, I am so happy as to experience again. But how can I address you, without at the same time thinking of that prince whom you represent amongst us with so much applause; and this remembrance fills me with emotion. For he is the prince to whom I am indebted for so many favours. It is he who recalled me, out of love to my country, when I was on the point of quitting it at the invitation of a great monarch; recalled me, I say; and, remembering my attachment to physic, founded this professorship, and bestowed it upon me, not without the most honourable tokens of his benevolence; and, by enrolling me in your illustrious assembly, learned professors, he enabled me to address you by the dear appellation of colleagues. Vouchsafe, therefore, favourably to receive him whom he has given you as a companion of your labours, and receive me, most honoured colleagues, in the same disposition of mind with which I come towards you; and shew as much benevolence, facility, and readiness to assist me, as I am ready to shew you veneration, obsequiousness, and docility.

Citizens and strangers, illustrious for your great virtues, your extraordinary intellectual endowments, and the high offices you fill, the friendship of many of whom I cultivate with pleasure, receive my thanks for the benevolence with which you have heard me. Finally, I address myself to you, you studious youth, hope of your country and of the church, and ornament of the academy; whatever learning or genius I am possessed of,

Et quicquid in arte mea possum promittere curæ,