Concerning the Care You Should Take of Your Health
1. On this point it would he easy to give many advices of the utmost consequence. But what signifies the best directions, when it is impossible to attend to them? You are encompassed with difficulties; and almost every part of the glorious work in which you are engaged is unfriendly to that life which you have devoted to God, and to the service of his church. From the nature of your work, you must be unavoidably exposed to all kinds of weather: — Damp houses, bad beds, innutritions food, and a terrible catalogue of d coUera. The bad effects of these you may endeavour in some measure to counteract, or to suspend for a time: but you cannot ultimately prevent them from hurrying you into eternity. Whatever deference I may feel myself inclined to pay to. the assei tion of a great man, viz., That a minister of the gospel is immortal till his work is done: yet I am satisfied, that he who preaches the gospel as he ought will unavoidably, sooner or later, become a inart3rr to his work.
2. The best I can say to you on this subject is, Never join hands with your unfavourable circumstances to injure your constitution, and hasten your death. Concerning that abominable and fatl drain of human life, the pipe and quid, I need here say nothing. My opinion has long since been before the public. I am sorry to say that I know several young men who are to this day murdering themselves in this way; but they are by me incorrigible. I leave them in the hands of Grod, and say to you. Never imitate them; they disgrace themselves, and would disgrace you.
3. If you regard your health, never suffer your bed to be warmed. This is a species of needless self-indulgence, which is a scandal to the character of a man. If you suspect the bed to be damp, then let it be aired with a pan or two of coals; but be sure you turn the clothes down, and let it cool at least two hours before you lie down. Never sleep in a damp bed: — this is certain death, especially to a delicate constitution. Thirty-twc years ago I lay in a damp bed at Beer-Alston, in Devonshire; for several months after, I was at death’s door. Through mercy I recovered a little; but got a very
9 bad congh through it, from which, I have not been one day free for upwards of thirty years; and have every reason to believe, should all other mortal causes be inactive, that alone is sufficient to give me an untimely grave. If you perceive the sheets to be damp, take them immediately off, and lie with your stockings and waistcoat on between the blankets.
Do not keep the same shirt on during the day in which you have slept the preceding night; the matter of insensible perspiration is expelled from the body because it is noxious, and cannot be reabsorbed without doing the constitution great injury; and reabsorbed it must be, if you continue to wear the same linen during the day, in which you slept all night.
4. Never dry your wet clothes while you have them on; this is very injurious. If you have no change of raiment (and it often happens that a Methodist preacher has but one coat) walk in the open air till they are dry, or go to bed that they may be dried at the fire. But by all means keep from the fire while they are upon you; otherwise the heat, causing the wet to retire before it, will strike it into the skin, produce immediate obstructions, and prove the parent of many miseries.
5. It is natural for persons, spent with fatigue in hot weather, to wish for some cooling drink: and some have rashly, in such circumstances, taken a draught of cold water; which has, in several cases, produced almost instant death. Others have taken spirituous liquors, and got a pleuritic fever in consequence. A proper consideration of the danger on either hand will make you cautious. When the body is greatly heated by the warmth of the weather, and excessive fatigue, some fluid may be necessary to supply the deficiency occasioned by the excessive evaporation of moisture from every part of the body: in such a case a few mouthfiils of tepid water is precisely the best thing you can take. Do not mind the vulgar prejudice that it will occasion vomiting; it will occasion nothing of the kind; however, if you have at hand a little lemon juicci you may add it, with a’ small quantity of sugar; and you will then have not only a safe, but pleasant beverage.
6. There is a most safe and effectual method of cooling the body when overheated by fatigue, or the excessive warmth of the weather which I wish to be generally known. Take a basin of cold water, dip your hands in it, and frequently lave the water on the wrist and back of each hand;
9 — 2 this will cool the whole body in a gradual and yet speedy manner, without the smallest danger to the general health. The extra quantity of caloric of principle of heat, accumulated in the body, will communicate itself to the cold water; and the warmth of that in the basin will soon show you what a quantity of this consuming matter you have lost. I have frequently practised this in a very hot climate, with the most beneficial effects. After thus sufficiently cooling the hands and wrists, even a moderate draught of cold water may be taken without danger. Getting the hands and wrists pumped on will have the same beneficial effects; and if you practise this frequently in travelling in hot weather, all fever wijl be prevented, and the body kept cool, comfortable, and in a state of con* tinual refreshment. This is my general plan, when hot and feverish on the sabbath evenings after my day’s fatigue. I either go to the pump, or take a basin of cold water and lave it on my hands and wrists; and the consequence is, a lowered pulse, and general refreshment of the whole system. In travelling by coach, I pursue this practice at almost every stage: and have often most heartily thankedT God for this additional benefit of cold water. If in travelling to the chapel at any time, you should be thrown into an extraordinary degree of heat, accompanied with profuse perspiratioB, and get yourself chilled, while preaching, by a current of cold air; as soon as you get out, walk till you are brought into the same state of profuse sweating you were in when you entered the chapel. Then go into a warm room, and continue till you are gradually cool; or, strip off your clothes, rub yourself dry with a towel, put on clean linen, and you will not suffer the slightest injury from what would otherwise have produced a pleurisy, or typhus fever, and probably terminated only with your life. From suddenly obstructed perspiration, many valuable lives have been lost The plan I recommend will infallibly prevent such casualties.
7. Never take that food which does not agree with you, however well you may relish it. Drink no spirituous liquors, nor poor, bad table-beer. Water, in which a toast has been steeped, and covered for an hour, is beyond all comparison more nutritive, and more wholesome than either. Wash your face, hands, and feet often; and neglect not every morning to rinse your mouth with cold water, and to cleanse your teeth well with a sofk brush. He that begins this custom early, and continues in it, will never have the tooth ache, nor
9 — 3 an offensive breath. If you have a bad digestion, or should your meat lie ordinarily heavy upon your stomach, observe the following rules: never eat to repletion; leave off while you have an appetite for more; and let not a morsel of any kind of food enter into your stomach till you have chewed it as small as possible. This saves the stomach at least one half of its ordinary labour; and remember, what all should know, and what few properly observe, that it is for this very end that the God of nature gave you your teeth. Many use their teeth to make their food just small enough to be swallowed, and culpably leave the whole procei of mastication to be performed in the stomach! No wonder that such are troubled with flatulencies, indigestion, and many other evils. A few mouthfuls of hot pure water will generally relieve the stomach, and forward digestion. Never eat your food too warm.; nor drink any kind of hot slops in the morning: — these exceedingly relax and weaken the fibres of the stomach, and prevent it from performing its proper functions.
8. It is of vast consequence to have the f(Ece& expelled from the body as soon as nature indicates the necessity of it. On this delicate subject I must observe, that the faeces being too long retained, grow corrupt, irritate the intestines, and produce a morbid alteration in the mucus which lines their internal surface. The absorbents, from the preternatural distention of the vessels into which they open, become abundantly more active; and, taking up the morbid matter, return it to the blood; where, circulating with the whole mass, it lays the foundation of incalculable mischief. Sometimes, by long retention of the faeces, the extreme state of tension in which the nerves have been held render tljem paralytic, so that the muscles to which they were distributed becAne incapable of obeying the dictates of necessity; hence neither the solid nor fluid faeces can be expelled. The sphincter muscles, being kept long in a violent state of contraction, lose their elastic power. At other times a contrary eflfect is produced; the paralytic affection is so great, that the muscles become so completely relaxed, that the faeces cannot be retained for the ordinary time; hence diabetes, and similar complaints. Most persons, after having suffered much through too long a retention of urine, have found the torment they at first experienced abate; and, when a convenient time offered, have fruitlessly endeavoured to obey a command which nature no longer urged. What was the reason?
Why, either nature (of two evils choosing the least) had caused the matter which could be no longer retained in its proper place, to be taken up by the absorbent vessels, and thrown back into the blood; or the long-contracted muscles had nowlost their distensive capacity, and the matter could not be expelled.
9. I have proved this often through an obstinate attachment to some particular study, and through false delicacy. That I might be able fully to ascertain this matter, and the more effectually to warn others, even at my own expense, I have voluntarily submitted to repeat these experiments on myself. I can in consequence say, I advance no hypothesis on this subject; and wish, that all who read this paper would rather take my word for the fact than submit to the trial. I have only one remark to make on this subject; that, in respect to the urine, the absorbent vessels never take it up and return it into the circulation till the vessel in which it is lodged has been distended by a supernatural quantity to its utmost capacity. Then the absorbents, becoming more active by pressure, take up the superabundant quantity, and soon restore it to the blood. I need not tell you that this matter was secreted from the blood at first, ‘because it was injurioas to it, and to the whole system; and, that retaming such a quantity back into the circuktion must produce the most melan< choly e£fects. A person who wishes to enjoy good health, should haye his regular and set times for those evacuations which nature dictates, as he has for his daily food. Regularity in observing a set time will soon produce a habit, which will prevent costiveness, and all its attendant evils. Who has not heard of the tragical death of the famous Tycho Brahe? Being in a carriage with the Em-> peror Kodolphus II., his false deUcacy forbade him to obey the urgent demands of nature; and the, consequence was, the premature death of one of the greatest philosophers in the universe.*
10. These may appear to be small things; but they are matters of the utmost importance. A constipation of the bowels, a stricture of the urethra, a diabetes, a contamination of the whole mass of blood, are dreadful evils which carelessness in the above respects may easily produce, and which due attention to the imperious voice of nature may fully prevent.
* There are some excellent observations on this head in that inyaluable tract of M. Tisot, entitled, De la Sant dea Gens de Lettres.
11. You perceive I have recommended no medi« cine: 1st, Because none but an empirio would recommend any but in the presence of the disorder, after having considered the state of the constitution, the combinations of disease, and a variety of local circumstances which might make the same mode of treatment improper in one case, the usefuhiess of which was strongly indicated in another. 2dly, Because I am not writing about the restoration of health, but about its preservation. And, 3rdly, Because I believe nature, if she get fair play, will require very little medical assistance.
12. Let not nature be impeded in the process of her work — Let her never be obliged to carry a burden of meat, drink, or clothes. Keep your head in general cool by day, and moderately warm by night — see that your feet be always moderately warm and dry; and avoid all quack medicines as you would the pestilence. Let your moderation in all things be known unto all; the Lord is at hand. Finally, As your life, from the nature of your work, must hang so constantly in doubt, live for eternity, and be every moment prepared to meet your God. Let this be your motto, and let your heart feel that it is true,
“For me to live is Christ; to die, is gain.”
I leave these Advices with you; and earnestly commend you to Grod and the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified; and am affectionately,
Your companion in tribulation,
And in the kingdom and patience of Jesus,
ADAM CLAEKJl