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ESSAYS
on
HYPOCHONDRIACAL
AND OTHER
NERVOUS   AFFECTIONS.
            BY JOHN gjgnx M.D.
MEMBER OF THE IIOYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, LONDON; AND IATE
          PHYSICIAN TO THE FINSBUBr DISPENSARY,
    I have chosen those subjects of these Essays, wherein I take human
life to be most concerned, which are of most common use, or most ne-
cessary knowledge; and wherein,  though I may not be able to inform
men more than they know, I may perhaps give them occasion to consider
more than they do.             rin~ ft  Sir William Temple.


                    t"4'  TT>*ry ,',,v
                    *>? 'ji i>^ ..»..:
lino
               PHILADELPHIA:  ^

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY M. CAREY 8s SON,
             No. 126, Chesnut Street.
May 20, 1817, 
 
ADVERTISEMENT.
  It is right to apprise the reader of the fol-
lowing Essays, that many passages  in them
have  been taken, without much alteration,
from  the Medical Reports, which, after Dr.
Willan had relinquished the task, I was, for a
course of years,  in the practice of communi-
cating to the Old Monthly Magazine.
  It was my original  design to have  endea-
voured to  write something more systematic
and complete on the subject of mental disea-
ses ; but domestic circumstances in which the
public are  not interested, having interfered
with the prosecution  of that  object,  I have
been  induced to commit to the press, in the
form  of Essays, what I had regarded as mate-
rials merely towards the formation of a larger
and more methodical  work,
                                 J. REID.
Grenville-Street, Brunswick Square,
     May 24, 1816. 
CONTENTS.
    Essay.                                        Page.
       I.  On the influence of the mind on the body       5
      II.  The power of volition     -     -    -    -    9
     III.  The fear of death    -                      17
     IV.  On Pride......25
      V.  On Remorse.....33
     VI.  On Solitude        .....41
    VII.  Excessive study, or application of mind       49
   VIII.  Vicissitude, a cause and characteristic of intel-
           lectual malady    -                       55
     IX. Want of sleep.....59
      X. Intemperance      -                     -   65
     XI. The excess of abstinence injurious     -       85
    XII. Morbid affections of the organs of the Senses   87
   XIII. Mental derangement not indicative of constitu-
           tional vigour of mind    -    -    -    -   97
   XIV. Physical Malady, the occasion of Mental disor-
           der                           -         101
    XV. On the atmosphere of London     -     -      105
   XVI. Dyspeptic and hepatic diseases    -    -     109
  XVII. Palsy, idiotic, and spasmodic affections        117
 XVII -. The hereditary nature of madness            141
   XIX. On old age......147
    XX. Lunatic asylums       -     -     -     -      153
  XXI.  The importance of counteracting the tendency of
           Mental disease    -     -    -    -     161
  XXII. On Bleeding.....167
 XXIII. On Pharmacy      -                       175
 XXIV.  On Ablution    -      -       -           181
  XXV.  On bodily exercise    -     -               185
 XXVI. Real Evils, a remedy for those of the Imagina-
           tion   ......192
XXVII. Occupation       -       -      -      -    197 
ESSAY  I.
    ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE MIND ON
               . THE BODY.

  HE who, in the study or the treatment of
the human frame,  overlooks the intellectual
part of it, cannot but entertain very incorrect
notions of its  nature, and fall into gross and
sometimes fatal blunders in the means which
he adopts for its regulation or repair.  Whilst
he is directing his purblind skill to remove or
relieve some more  obvious  and superficial
symptom, the worm  of mental malady may
be gnawing inwardly and undetected at the
root of the constitution.   He may be in a sit-
uation  like that of  a surgeon,  who at the
time that he is  occupied  in tying up one ar-
tery, is not aware that his patient is  bleeding
to death at another.—Intellect is  not omnipo-
tent ;  but its actual power over the organized
matter to which it is attached, is much greater
than is usually imagined.  The  anatomy of
the mind, therefore, should be learnt, as well
      2 
6         ON  THE INFLUENCE  OF

as that of the body;  the study of its constitu-
tion in general, and its peculiarities, or what
may be technically called its idiosyncrasies, in
any individual case, ought to be regarded as
one of the most essential branches of a medi-
cal education.
  The  savage, the  rustic,  the  mechanical
drudge, and the infant  whose faculties  have
not had time to unfold themselves, or which
(to make use of physiological language) have
not as yet been secreted, may, for the most part,
be regarded as machines, regulated principally
by physical  agents.   But man, matured, civi-
lized, and by due  culture raised to his proper
level in the  scale  of being, partakes more of a
moral than of  an animal character, and is in
consequence to be worked upon by remedies
that apply themselves to his  imagination, his
passions, or his judgment, still  more than by
those that   are directed immediately  to the
parts and functions of his material organiza-
tion.  Pharmacy is but a small part of physic;
medical cannot be separated from moral sci-
ence without  reciprocal and essential muti-
lation.
   Such observations are more particularly apt
 to occur to one whose station of professional
 experience is established in the  midst of an
 intellectual, commercial and voluptuous me- 
         THE MIND ON THE BODY.         7

tropolis,the inhabitants of which exist in a state
of more exalted excitement and irritative per-
turbation, than can be occasioned by the com-
paratively monotonous circumstances of rural
or provincial existence. Over a still and wave-
less lake, a boat may move along steadily and
securely, with scarcely any degree of skill or
caution in the pilot who conducts it; whereas
on  the agitated  and  uncertain ocean, it re-
quires an extraordinary degree of dexterity
and science to insure the safety of the vessel,
and the proper and regular direction of its des-
tined course.   " Thus the practice  of medi-
cine is reduced to a few simple rules, in the
country, and in hospitals ; but it is obliged  to
multiply, to vary, and to combine its resources,
when applied to  men of letters, to artists, and
to all persons whose lives are  not devoted  to
mere manual labour."*
  The class of persons whose lives are devoted
to mere manual  labour, especially  the  more
indigent part of them, are, to a certain extent,
distinguished by the character of their diseases,
as well as that of their other evils.  They dif-
fer from the higher orders, less perhaps in the
actual quantity, than  in the glaring and obtru-
sive colour of their calamities.
  *  Coup d' oeil sur les Revolutions, et sur la Tleforme de  la Medicine.
                                 P. J G Cabanis. 
 8         ON  THE INFLUENCE  OF

   There is no person, perhaps, who is apt to
 form so low an estimate of the value of hu-
 man existence, as a medical man practising
 among the poor,  especially  among the poor
 of a great city.   But it is not impossible  that
 he may exaggerate the excess of their suffer-
 ings, by combining, as it is natural for him to
 do, their  external state,  with those feelings
 which he has acquired from very different cir-
 cumstances  and  education.   As the horrors
 of the grave affect only the living, so the mis-
 eries of poverty exist principally, perhaps, in
the imagination of the affluent.  The labour
of the poor man relieves him at least  from
the burden of fashionable ennui:  and the con-
stant pressure  of physical  inconveniencies,
fro in the more elegant, but surely not less in-
tolerable distresses of a refined and romantic
sensibility.  Even those superior intellectual
advantages of education, to wrhich the more
opulent are almost exclusively admitted, may,
in  some cases, open only new avenues to sor-
row. The mind, in proportion as it is expan-
 ded, exposes a larger surface to impression. 
ESSAY  II.
         THE  POWER OF VOLITION.


  Nervous diseases, from their daily increas-
ing prevalence, deserve at the present time a
more than  ordinary degree  of attention and
interest on  the part of the medical practitioner.
Yet nothing surely can surpass the inhumanity,
as well as  folly, with which patients of this
class are too  frequently  treated.  We  often
act upon the ill-founded idea, that such com-
plaints are altogether dependent upon the
power of the will;  a notion, which,  in  para-
doxical extravagance,  scarcely yields  to the
doctrine  of a  modern, though now obsolete
writer, on  the Philosophy of Morals, who as-
serted that no one need  die,  if, with a suffi-
cient energy, he determined to live.  To com-
mand, or to advise a person labouring under
nervous  depression, to be cheerful and  alert,
is no less  idle and absurd,  than it would be,
to command or advise a person, under the di-
rect and most intense influence of the sun's 
10      THE POWER  OF VOLITION.
rays, to shiver with cold, or one who is " wal-
lowing naked in December's snows,"  to per-
spire from a sensation of excessive heat. The
practice of laughing at,  or scolding a  patient
of this class,  is equally  cruel and ineffectual.
No one was ever laughed or scolded  out of
hypochondriasis.  It is scarcely likely that we
should elevate a person's spirits  by insulting
his understanding.  The malady of the nerves
is in general of too obstinate a nature to yield
to a sarcasm or a  sneer.  It would scarcely
be more preposterous to think of dissipating
a dropsy of  the  chest, than a  distemper of
the mind, by the  force of ridicule or rebuke.
The hypochondriac may feel indeed the edge
of satire as  keenly as  he would  that of a
sword.   But although its point should pene-
trate his bosom, it would not be  likely to let
out from it, any portion of that noxious mat-
ter by which it is so painfully oppressed.  The
external expression of  his disorder may be
checked by the  coercive influence of  shame
or fear:  but in doing this, a similar  kind of
risque is incurred to what arises from the re-
pelling of a cutaneous eruption, which, although
it  conceal the outward appearance?  seldom
fails still more firmly to establish the internal
strength, to increase the danger, and to  pro-
tract the continuance of the disease.   By in- 
         THE, POWER OF  VOLITION.       11

direct and imperceptible means, the attention
may, in many instances, be gently and insen-
sibly enticed:  but seldom can we with safety
attempt to force it from any habitual topic of
painful contemplation.   In endeavouring to
tear the mind from a subject to which it has
long and closely attached itself, we are almost
sure to  occasion an irreparable laceration of
its structure.
  However well founded may be these obser-
vations,  it  must  still be acknowledged, that
the different degrees of power which persons
of various habits and constitutions appear to
possess,  not only over the feelings and facul-
ties of the  mind, but likewise  over what are
called the involuntary muscles, and even the
blood vessels of the body, may afford ground
for an inquiry, curious at least, if not impor-
tant, how far so desirable a power may be ac-
quired ;  and to what extent, by some yet un-
discovered method of education, it may be
elevated and improved.
   Dr.  Cheyne, in one of his medical treatises,
narrates a case, the  accuracy of which  is es-
tablished by an irrefragable combination of ev-
idence, of a man who  could die to all appear-
ance, at any time that he  chose; and, after
having lain for a considerable period exactly
as a corpse, was  able,  as it would seem, by a 
IS       THE POWER OF VOLITION.
 voluntary  struggle, to restore  to himself the
 appearance and all the  various functions of
 animation and intellect.  It is to be inferred
 from the latter part of the story, that the  un-
 natural and painful exertions  by which this
 person  assumed  the  semblance of decease,
 produced at length a fatal result. Death would
 be no longer  mocked with  impunity.  The
 counterfeit corpse, a few hours after its last re-
 vival, relapsed into a state which was capable
 of no subsequent  resuscitation.   But the case
 is so interesting and remarkable, as to deserve
 our giving it in all the detail  with which Dr.
 Cheyne presents it to his readers.
  " He could die or expire when he pleased;
 and yet by an effort,  or  somehow, he could
 come to life again. He insisted so much upon
 our seeing  the trial  made,  that we were at
last forced  to comply.  We all  three felt  his
pulse first.   It was distinct, though small and
thready: and his  heart had its usual beating.
 He composed himself on his back ; and lay in
 a still posture for some  time.  While I held
his right hand, Dr. Baynard laid his hand  on
his  heart;  and Mr. Skrine  held a clear look-
ing-glass to his mouth.   I  found his  pulse
 sink gradually, till at last I could not feel any
 by the most exact and nice touch.   Dr. Bay-
 nard  could  not feel the  least motion in his 
THE POWER OF VOLITION.        13
heart; nor Mr. Skrine perceive the least sort
of breath on the bright  mirror he held to his
mouth.   Then each of us, by turns, examined
his arm, heart, and breath; but could not, by
the nicest scrutiny, discover the least symptom
of life in him. We reasoned a long time about
this odd appearance as well as we could; and,
finding he still continued in that condition, we
began to  conclude that he had indeed carried
the experiment too far; and at last we were
satisfied  he was actually dead, and were just
ready  to leave him.   This  continued about
half an hour.  By nine o'clock in the morn-
ing in autumn, as  we  were going away, we
observed some motion  about the body ;  and
upon examination  found his pulse  and the
motion of his heart gradually returning; he
began to breathe gently, and speak softly. We
were all astonished to  the last degree at this
unexpected  change; and after some further
conversation with  him and ourselves, went
away fully satisfied as to all the particulars of
this fact, but not able  to form  any rational
scheme how to account for it. He afterwards
called for his attorney,  added a codicil to his
will,  $c. and  calmly  and composedly died
about five or six o'clock that evening."*

             * Cheyne's English Malady
      3 
14       THE POWER OF VOLITION.
   Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy,  re-
ports cases which were somewhat similar, but
by no means equally wonderful with the pre-
ceding.  " Celsus speaks of a priest that could
separate himself from  his senses when he
list, and lie like a dead man, void  of life and
sense.  Qui, quoties volebat, mortuo similisja-
cebat, auferens se a sensibus. Cardan brags of
himself, that he could do  as much, and that
when he list."*
   Such instances serve to shew, that the will
can perform wonders in the controul and ma-
nagement of our corporeal frame.  If such an
extraordinary degree of command be possible,
as has been  here  represented,  it is  fair to
conclude, that we may have  in general a great-
er power than we are aware of, over the ani-
mal and vital functions. If, by a determination
of the mind, it  be practicable in some cases,
to suspend altogether the appearance of life,
it  is reasonable to believe, that, by the same
means, we may put at least a temporary stop
to the symptoms of disease. We would not be
paradoxical  or extravagant enough to assert
that for a person to be in health, it is suffici-
ent that he wills it.  But without transgressing
the moderation of  truth,  we may venture to

   * Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. i. v. 134. octavo edit. 
THE POWER OF VOLITION.        15
 give it as our opinion, that a man often indo-
 lently bends under the burden of indisposition,
 which a  spirited effort would, in the first in-
 stance, have shaken from his shoulders.  If,
 upon the approach of the malady, he had re.
 solutely set his face against it, he would pro-
 bably have arrested it in its threatened attack.
   I was once consulted concerning an  hypo-
 chrondriacal  lady,  who  complained princi-
 pally of an invincible indolence and languor.
 She seemed almost incapable of voluntary mo-
 tion.  This  apparent  incapacity had been
 sanctioned, and confirmed by authority as well
 as indulgence. She had been told, by a very
 complaisant physician, that " exertion would
 be  poison to her," and  had too literally re-
 posed under  the  shelter of that professional
 opinion.   Many, from an anxiety to avoid this
 falsely imagined poison, reject the most  effec-
 tual antidote to the real miseries of life,  as
 well as to  a large proportion of its diseases.
 To  a patient, however,  whose  malady is las-
 situde, exertion should be prescribed at first
 only, in very small doses.   Such a  person
would be apt to be exhausted even by an or-
dinary task  of exercise, and might thus  be
discouraged from further efforts at activity. .
\ 
16
THE POWER OF VOLITION.
   In the class of what are called nervous affec-
tions, it unfortunately happens, that the very
essence of the  disease often consists in a de-
bility of the resolution; that the ailment of
body arises from  an impotency of spirit, a
palsy of the power of resistance.   A malady,
occasioned by the weakness of the mind, is
not likely to be cured by its energy.  A ten-
dency to sickness of the stomach, may often
he  overcome  by  striving  against it: but a
squeamish disgust of life cannot  in the same
degree be counteracted by a similar kind of
exertion.   It is  not uncommon to say, to a
drooping or desponding valetudinarian, " only
exert yourself, and you will get the better of
your complaint;" whereas, in many instances
of this kind, it might as well be said to an in-
valid confined to his bed by a  paralysis of his
limbs," only run or walk, and you will be well."
People in  general are apt to think that a man
under the  weight of constitutional or habitual
melancholy, may keep up his spirits, as a little
Miss can hold up her head, upon merely being
bid to do so.
   It is  often as impossible for an hypochon-
driac, by any voluntary effort, to get the better
of his complaint, as for a man of ordinary sta-
ture, to gain an ascendency, when struggling
under the compression of a giant. 
ESSAY III.
            THE  FEAR OF DEATH.

 " The Egyptians in their hieroglyphics expressed a melancholy man
by a hare sitting in a form, as being a most timorous as well as solitary
creature."                  Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.

  An undue fear of death is one of the most
ordinary symptoms of hypochondriasis, and
not the least frequent perhaps among  the
causes which produce it; unless, indeed, we
consider the disease  as already formed, as
soon as this feeling has encroached, in  any
inordinate  degree, upon the tranquillity of the
mind.
   It is a circumstance somewThat remarkable,
that those  persons should be in general found
to dread most their departure from this state
of being, to whom it has proved least produc-
tive of enjoyment. The passion for life would
seem to be like  that for country, which is said
to be felt with the greatest vivacity by the na-
tives of barren regions.
   Upon an apparently similar principle, after
 existence  has lost every thing that could enli- 
 18       THE FEAR OF DEATH.

 ven or embellish it, we often become more
 enamoured of its present deformity than  we
 were with its former loveliness,   When all is
 gone by, that could render the world reasona-
 bly dear to us, our attachment to it not only re-
 mains, but appears frequently to be strength-
 ened rather than to be impaired  by the de-
 parture of whatever could justify its continu-
 ance.  The love of life,  one might  fancy, in
 some cases, to be a product formed from the
 decomposition of its pleasures.
  These remarks are, in no case, so well il-
 lustrated as in that of many a  nervous invalid,
 to whom the continuance of being is often
 only the longer lingering of torture.  The un-
happy hypochondriac is unwilling to lay down
the burden which oppresses him.   The  rack
of life upon which he is stretched, he prefers
to the repose of the grave.  He is loath to re-
linquish that breath which  is spent in little
else than sighs and lamentations.  To him ex-
istence is a chronic  malady: and yet he feels
an insuperable aversion from its only effectual
cure.  I was once present when a  poor pa-
tient of a dispensary, conscious that he was la-
bouring under the last agonies of asthma, ari-
 sing from water in the chest, breathed a con-
fession, that " he was ashamed of feeling  so
much attached to (his last rag of life."   This 
          THE FEAR OF DEATH.         19

peculiar species of dotage, this fondness, as it
were, for the mere function of respiration, can
be explained only by that incurable obstinacy
of hope which yields to no experience.   We
persist in looking for the sweetest part of the
draught at the bottom of the cup.  That  feli-
city which the " first sprightly runnings" of
life could not give, we fondly expect may be
extracted from the  feculence  of age.   Such
an infatuation  with regard to the future, may
be considered, as, in some respects, a  desira-
ble ingredient in the composition of our frame.
It is a delusion which mercifully supplies what
would otherwise be a dreadful want in the re-
alities of life.  On the other hand,  an  almost
unceasing and fearful looking forward to the
end of our journey, prevents our seeing many
of the flowers  by which the path is strewed ;
and induces a distaste for nearly every  cor-
dial which might otherwise have innocently re-
freshed us in the course of our weary pilgrim-
age.   The habitual horror, which thus over-
shadows the mind, darkens the little daylight
of life.  An indulgence in this morbid excess
of apprehension not only embitters a man's
existence, but may often tend to shorten its
duration.  He hastens the  advance of death
by the fear with which his frame is seized at
the appearance of its approach.   His  trem- 
SO         THE  FEAR OF DEATH.
bling hand involuntarily  shakes the glass  in
which  his hours are numbered.
  Contradictory, as it may appear,  there are
well attested instances of persons who have
been driven even to suicide by the dread of
dissolution.  It  would seem as  if they had
rushed into the arms of death in order to shel-
ter themselves from the terrors of his coun-
tenance.
  The favourable termination of serious dis-
ease is to be attributed much oftener, than  is
in general imagined, to a pacific indifference,
on the part of the subject of it, with regard to
the ultimate result.  Cases have repeatedly
occurred in my  professional  experience,  in
which, after having chearfully looked for an
event which the sufferer anticipated simply as
a release from pain, he has appeared to feel
somewhat  like disappointment at a recovery
which  was  probably to be attributed, in a great
measure, to its not having been anxiously de-
sired.  I particularly recollect one instance of
a restoration to health from an apparently
hopeless disease, which I ascribed, at the time,
to  the tranquil  chearfulness of  the  patient,
which  powerfully aided the operations of na-
ture, and gave an  efficacy,  altogether unex-
pected, to the applications of art.  This patient
was one of the  Society of Friends ; a society 
THE FEAR OF DEATH.        SI
whose peaceful tenets and habits prove as fa-
vourable to health as they are to piety  and
virtue;  with whom Christianity consists prin-
cipally in composure ;  aud self-regulation con-
stitutes the essence of religion.
  In dangerous maladies, the person in whom
there is the least fear  of dying, has, other cir-
cumstances being the same, the fairest chance
to survive. Men, in critical situations, are apt
to be overwhelmed by their terrors;  they are
drowned  by  their too  eager  struggles to
emerge; they  would  keep afloat,  if they re-
mained quiescent.
  Predictions of death, whether supposed to
be supernatural, or originating  from human
authority, have often,  in  consequence of the
poisonous operation of fear, been punctually
fulfilled.  The anecdote is well attested of the
licentious Lord Littleton, that  he expired at
the exact stroke of the clock which, in a dream
or vision, he had been forewarned would be
the signal of his departure.
  It is recorded of a  person who had been
sentenced to be bled to death,  that, instead of
the punishment being actually inflicted, he was
merely  made to believe,  that it was  so, by
causing water,  when  his eyes were blinded,
to trickle down his  arm.  This  mimickry,
      4 
%%         THE FEAR OF DEATH.
however, of an operation stopped as complete-
ly the movements of the animated machine, as
if an entire exhaustion had been  effected of
the vivifying fluid.   The  man lost his life, al-
though not his blood, by this imaginary vene-
section.
  We read of another unfortunate being who
had been  condemned  to lose  his  head, that
the moment after it had been  laid upon the
block, a reprieve arrived ; but  that the victim
was already sacrificed. His ear was now deaf
to the dilatory  mercy.  The living principle
had been extinguished by the fear of the axe,
as effectually as it would have been by its fall.
" In Lesinsky's voyage round the world, there
is an account of a religious sect in the Sand-
wich Islands, who arrogate to themselves the
power of praying people to death.  Whoever
incurs their displeasure, receives notice that
the homicide Litany is about  to begin;  and
such are the effects of imagination,  that the
very notice is frequently sufficient, with these
poor people, to produce the effect."*
   Tell a timorous man that he will die, and if
he has been in  the habit of looking up with
reverence to your  opinion, it may, not impro-
bably, kill him.   Pronounce the sentence with
* Edinburgh Review, No. xlviii. p. 345. 
*
          THE FEAR OF DEATH.         23

sufficient decision and solemnity ; and under
certain circumstances, it will execute itself.
  I am no advocate for imposing wantonly or
unnecessarily upon  the  understanding of an
invalid, under the pretence of remedying his
distemper.   Deception is liable to discovery;
and, when once detected, a  man forfeits his
future right to credit and authority.  By giv-
ing hope where it turns out that there was no
ground for it,  we deprive ourselves of  the
power, forever after, of inspiring confidence
in those cases where even we have ourselves
no suspicion of danger.—But by terrifying the
imagination, to create danger, where none had
previously existed;  by some treacherous logic
to reason a man into an illness, or when a tri-
fling ailment is present, to aggravate  it into a
serious malady, by  representing it as already
such, is  among the basest and the  blackest
arts of empirical imposture. The practitioner,
who is capable of such meanness and atrocity,
can be compared only to the highwayman who
puts you in a  state  of alarm for your person,
in order that he may secure your purse ; and
who, if he cannot otherwise sufficiently fright-
en you, has no repugnance to run the risk at
least of murder, in  order that he may effect
his robbery. 
24         THE FEAR OF DEATH.
   The inordinate fear of death, so far as the
 disease is purely mental, may be in a great
 measure  counteracted by a juster estimate
 of the value of life,  " a state in which much is
 to be endured, and little, comparatively, to be
 enjoyed."  This correct judgment, when as-
 sociated with " the gay conscience"  of a life
 that has been spent, upon the whole, honour-
 ably and usefully, so far as it has advanced,
 will enable a man, at any stage of its progress,
 to look forward as well as backward, with no
 exulting or triumphant,  but with an humble
 and quiet satisfaction.
  The Christian is still more highly privileged.
 His eye, happily invigorated by faith, is able
to penetrate the thick mist which hangs over
the tomb, and which, from  our unassisted
sight, intercepts  any further prospect.  The
light of Divine Revelation is, after all, the only
light which can effectually disperse the gloom
of a  sick chamber, and  irradiate  even the
countenance of death. 
ESSAY  IV.
                ON  PRIDE.


  I had once an opportunity of being minute-
ly acquainted with the history of a case  in
which  successive mortifications of an  over-
weening pride, at length brought on a state of
melancholy, amounting to mental derange-
ment.   Such cases are by no means of unfre-
quent occurrence.  None are so liable as the
proud to this most humiliating of all afflictions.
The patient just referred to, previous to his
insanity, had suffered under several paralytic
attacks.  I remember being present, when a
contemptuous allusion having been made by
one of the company to some of his poetical
effusions, he suddenly complained  of being
seized by a numbness very much resembling
palsy.   The shafts of ridicule or  satire,  to
which he was  continually  exposing himself,
often wounded his vanity ; but nothing could
destroy it.   This buoyant quality, when  beat
down, has a wonderful facility in recovering 
26
ON PRIDE.
itself.   He was one of the multitude of instan-
ces which evince the  almost necessary con-
nection  betwixt  "vanity  and  vexation of
spirit."
  Egotism, although neither technically  nor
vulgarly classed among the diseases incident
to the human frame, well deserves a place in
a system of nosology.  Patients  of this class
are themselves the favourite subjects of their
uttered, and of course, of their unspoken medi-
tations.  "I" is the prominent  pronoun of
their conversation.
  Egotism, when combined with hypochon-
driasis,  often leads  a man to  form too high
a notion of his bodily as well as of his intellec-
tual stature.   It is no very  uncommon thing
for an hypochondriac to fancy himself too big
to get through a door: but I recollect no in-
stance  in which an invalid  of  this  class has
conceived that he was small enough to pass
through the key-hole.  In the imagination of
such patients, the pictures of themselves, when
not correctly drawn,  for the most part are
larger than life.  But to this rule there are ex-
ceptions ; such, for instance,  as that  which
Zimmerman notices, of a man  who imagined
himself a barley-corn ; and was  on that ac-
count afraid of going out  into  the  open air,
lest he should be picked up by the birds. 
ON PRIDE.              27
  The humbly-nervous ought to be treated
with the most encouraging respect, and with
the most courtier-like attention.   We should
endeavour, by expressions of an extraordinary
regard for them, to supply the want of satis-
faction which they are apt to feel with them-
selves.  On the other hand, a haughty imbe-
cility ought to be met by a management  that
is calculated  to depress the patient in his  own
eyes, and to  sober a spirit that may have been
intoxicated by draughts of a servile or treach-
erous adulation.  There is an appropriate re-
mark in Terence,  with regard to  a parasite
who was in the habit of  purchasing his daily
seat at a luxurious table, by feeding, with com-
pliments : the gluttonous vanity of its master,
    " Hie homines ex stultisfacit insa?ios."
  Praise unjustly or too liberally administered,
acts as poison upon a puny intellect.  A  man
even of a vigorous mind is liable to receive in-
jury from  applause, although it be well de-
served.  Extraordinary merit is often spoiled
by  its natural and most  appropriate reward.
The smoke of the incense is  apt to obscure
and pollute the idol of our worship.
  The obstinacy of self-conceit is to be sub-
dued only  by a permanent, as well as a se-
vere discipline.   It is a long course of morti-
fying circumstances, a regularly pursued sys- 
28
ON PRIDE.
tern of humiliation, that is necessary in order
to bring a vain man's opinion of himself down
to the level of his real merit.
  It is  in a great measure, on account of  the
eminence of their station in society, exposing
them more than others  to the giddiness of
pride, and the noxious influence of adulation,
that absolute sovereigns are in general to be
ranked among the most unfortunate of men.
There  is something apparently in the empire
of an individual over nations, that renders him
incompetent, for the most part, to the proper
government of himself.
  One reason why the proud are  peculiarly
liable to mental derangement, is, that they are
less able than others to bear  up against the
distresses of  life.   They are more severely
galled by the yoke of adversity.   Misfortune
they are apt to consider as an injury inflicted
upon them by Providence, at wrhich they can-
not help feeling something like the same re-
sentment  as  at a wrong which they have re-
ceived from a fellow-creature.  When assault-
ed by calamity, pride erects its crest in indig-
nation against heaven.   A young man, of an
irritable  temperament,  once  consulted  me
about a complaint which had been considered
as nervous, and which,  according to his de- 
ON PRIDE.              29
scription of  it,  was  sufficiently  distressing.
"But,"  added he,  " the most provoking cir-
cumstance relative to my sufferings, is, that I
am conscious of having in no way deserved
them."
   Humility predisposes  to  resignation.  He
who thinks most lowly of his merits,  will,  in
general, be induced to think most lightly  of
his afflictions.  Descent from elevated station
will be borne easily by those who are not high
minded.   The loss of opulence is no  serious
sorrow to one, the modesty of whose wishes
can stoop to the degradation of his circum-
stances.   Though,  by eradicating pride, we
could not always disarm adversity of its sting,
we should, in every instance, render less pain-
ful and dangerous the wound which it inflicts.
   After the remarks which have been already
made, it is scarcely necessary to add anything
to shew, how ill-adapted the doctrine of the
ancient Stoics was, either to help the infirmi-
ties of our nature, or  to alleviate its sorrows.
That  " pain is  no evil"  is  a proposition  of
which every  one, with his senses about him,
must feel the absurdity. A maxim originating
from  the pride of man, is ill calculated to en-
dow him with .patience.  The arrogance of
preposterous speculation may stifle a groan,
      5 
30               ON PRIDE.
or any  more  articulate  expression  of com-
plaint : but it will not render less excruciating
the unuttered agony.  It may forbid pain from
betraying itself in the writhings of the limbs,
or in the contortions of the countenance:  but
feeling,  thus forcibly compressed within the
heart, will  be  in danger of bursting it by its
elastic force and expansion.  A man elevated
upon the stilts of Stoicism, stands higher in-
deed, but less securely.  They lift him above
the ground: but, whilst they deduct from his
safety, they give no real addition to his  sta-
ture.  Stoicism is a cloke which merely  dis-
guises, not  an armour which defends  or  for-
tifies, our weakness.  The vanity of its lofty
pretensions may  be compared to the feather
that idly floats above the head, not to that so-
lid part  of  the helmet which encircles  and
protects it.  The glitter of affected magnani-
mity is  apt to be  mistaken for what is ster-
ling and substantial, until the repeated  rubs of
life have worn off  the  slight and superficial
gilding.
   For the  unsatisfactory  pride of Stoicism,
would be well substituted that salutary bene-
volence which is so forcibly inculcated by the
precepts of Christianity, and so conspicuously
exemplified in  the character of its author.
By not thinking of our individual interest, we 
ON PRIDE.
31
effectually,  although  indirectly, promote it.
He who enters most deeply into the misfor-
tunes of others, will  be best able to bear his
own.   A practical benevolence, by habitually
urging us to disinterested exertion, tends to
alienate the attention from any single train of
ideas,  which,  if favoured  by  indolence and
self contemplation, might be in danger of mo-
nopolising the mind;  and occasions  us to
lose a sense of our  personal  concerns  and
feelings, in an enlarged and liberal sympathy
with the general good.  Howard, had he not
been a philanthropist, would probably  have
been a maniac.
   An admirable sermon by the late Dr. Priest-
ley, on  " the duty of not living to ourselves,"
provided  that the principles of it were  well
digested and assimilated into the habit, would
prove a better preservative against the mala-
dy of mental  derangement than any that is
to be found amidst the precepts of moral, or
the prescriptions of medical, science. 
 
ESSAY V.
                 REMORSE.

  " No disease of the imagination is so diffi-
cult to cure, as that which is complicated with
the dread of guilt.  Fancy and conscience then
act interchangeably upon  us;  and so often
shift their place, that the illusions of the one
are not distinguished from the dictates of the
other.   When melancholy notions take the
form of duty, they lay hold  on the faculties
without opposition,  because  we are afraid to
exclude or banish them."*
  I shall never  forget a patient, who, upon
the entrance of  the physician into his  cham-
ber,  observed " You can be of no service to
me.  Doctors cannot  cure  a diseased con-
science."   The  disease was indeed in this in-
stance too deeply rooted for medicine to  era-
dicate.  The unfortunate person a few days
afterwards  died  by  his own hand in a pa-
roxym of phrenzy.
  Remorse itself is  considered, perhaps too
indiscriminately, as  a compensation for mis-
* Rasselas. 
34
REMORSE.
conduct.  When it is an unproductive feeling
merely, and not a regenerating principle, in-
stead of mitigating, it can serve only to aggra-
vate our offences.  Repentance, sentimentally
iudulged, often stands in the way of a practi-
cal reformation.   The  pressure  of conscious
criminality ought to be sufficient to rouse into
action, but not so great as to crush altogether?
the powers  of the mind.  Contrition  is most
easily indulged in a state of indolence and
solitude; but can  be  alleviated only by stre-
nuous efforts in the service of society.  The
errors of our past life are not to be atoned by
wasting the remainder of it in a sedentary
grief, or in idle lamentations.  Every  good
deed which a man performs, lightens, in a
certain degree, the load of recollected guilt.
Active duty is alone  able to counteract the
injury, or to obliterate  the stain, of transgres-
sion.
   In even aggravated cases of remorse, much
may be done towards relief, if the patient have
resolution enough to  administer to himself;
to awaken from  the lethargy of a vain regret;
and make every atonement in his power for
any wrong that he has committed, or any mo-
ral law which he has broken.  A man may
compensate to society, for an  injury that  is
perhaps irreparable to  an individual;  and  by 
                REMORSE.              35

the extraordinary exertions of a penitentiary
benevolence, be the  means of  producing a
quantity of happiness that is equivalent to the
misery which his former vices or errors may
have occasioned.
  The paradise  of innocence, it is true,  can
never be regained.  But innocence is a state
of happiness rather than of merit.  More vi-
gor is required to resist the recurrence, after
having yielded to the first approach, of temp-
tation.  The glory of  victory is enhanced by
the humiliation of previous discomfiture.  A
man must know something of vice, before he
can practice the highest  degree of virtue.
The summits of moral excellence were  never
reached,  without the  foot having frequently
slipped during the arduous ascent.
  Remorse is often felt most acutely by those
who have the least reason for self-accusation.
In proportion to the purity of a man's charac-
ter, is in general the degree of this species of
sensibility,  which may sometimes  indeed
amount to even a fastidious, and what may
be called a nervous delicacy; in consequence
of which, the best men  are not unfrequently
apt to class themselves among the worst.
There  are no symptoms of disease which it
is more difficult to cure, than  the  hallucina-
tions of an hypochondriacal humility.  Hence 
36              REMORSE.
 arises a bigotted self-reproach, a want of com-
 mon candour in a man towards his own cha-
 racter, an utter blindness to its good qualities,
 and a prejudiced and preposterous exaggera-
 tion of any bad one that may belong to it.
   It is not very long since I had a profession-
 al opportunity of knowing something of the
 morbid history of a man, who had succeeded
 to a peerage,  and  an immense estate, by the
 death of an elder brother, with whom he had
 not  been upon good terms for some years
 previous to that event.  The unforunate heir
 to the title and domains, so severely reproach-
 ed  himself for  that suspension of fraternal
 amity, with regard to which he was altogether
 innocent, that he sunk into a profound melan-
 choly, from which I  have reason to believe
 nothing has hitherto been able to rouse him.
  I knew another  person, who, although his
 life had  been signalized  by the most active
 and successful exertions in behalf of his fel-
low-creatures, was affected  with a despon-
 dency, the burden  of which  was, that he had
 been  all  along a useless member of society,
and that the talents which had been given him
had produced nothing in  his hands.   Under
the influence of this imagination, he expressed
a kind of horror as well as shame, at the pros-
pect of giving up a stewardship, the duties of 
                 REMORSE.              37

which he had, as he thought, so unfaithfully
discharged.
  In addition to the  morbid disposition in  a
patient to calumniate himself, which is often
a striking feature of hypochondriacal malady,
there is another important  source  of error,
from which even more healthy minds are not
altogether exempt.   We are apt to be unduly
biassed in our feelings with regard to the qual-
ity of an action, or course of conduct, by cir-
cumstances which merely happen to follow it,
without having with it any necessary or proba-
ble connection.   It  is by  no means uncom-
mon for a person, in reference to some, per-
haps, merely  fancied error of management,
or neglect in attendance upon a sick friend, to
say,  " had he died, I  should  never have  for-
given myself;" as if the accidental decease of
the one would have given a different complex-
ion to the previous  behaviour  of the other;
or as though the fortunate recovery of the in-
valid would have exonerated an indolent or
inconsiderate nurse from all sense  of moral
responsibility.  A disastrous result not unfre-
quently reflects the horror of guilt upon that
conduct, which would otherwise have escaped
any injurious imputation, which  would have
been deemed innocent in its character, had  it
proved so in its consequences.   Nothing  can
         6 
38
REMORSE.
 exceed the obvious injustice of this ex post
facto  mode of condemnation:  yet  after all,
 the event is often the  only criterion by which
 the world,  from its  necessarily superficial
 knowledge, or from its careless examination,
 can pronounce a judgment upon the conduct
 of an individual:  and when that judgment
 is unfavourable, a man's bitter reflections upon
 himself are rendered much more poignant, in
 consequence of their having been confirmed,
 as it were, by the verdict of  his  fellow-crea-
 tures.  But, although the light of public opin-
 ion may sometimes be  necessary to  reveal,
 even to a  criminal,  the true colour of his
 offenses, it not less frequently throws  a false
glare upon the faults, as well as upon the vir-
tues of mankind.  People, in general, are too
apt to  consider as misconduct what was merely
mischance, and  to  confound calamity with
crime.  A man's character may be shaded by
the accidents, as well as by the actions, of his
life.   And perhaps, even conscience itself is
seldom more deeply wounded  by the stings
of guilt, than it sometimes has been by the ar-
rows of fortune.
  The singular history is well known of Simon
Brown, the dissenting  clergyman,  who  fan-
cied that he had been deprived by the Al-
mighty of his immortal soul  in  consequence 
REMORSE.              39
of having accidentally taken away the fife of a
highwayman, although it was done in the act
of resistance to his threatened violence, and in
protection of his own person.   Whilst  kneel-
ing upon the wretch whom he had succeeded
in throwing upon the ground, he suddenly dis-
covered that his prostrate enemy was deprived
of life.  This unexpected  circumstance pro-
duced so violent an impression upon his ner-
vous system, that he was overpowered by the
idea of even involuntary homicide ; and for
this  imaginary crime, fancied  himself ever
after to  be condemned to one of the most
dreadful  punishments that could be inflicted
upon a human being.
  Not many months ago, I had an opportunity
of knowing an instance of the melancholy ef-
fect of remorse,  where the feeling, although
not altogether without foundation, was unduly
aggravated by  an accidental association of oc-
currences.
  A young lady  was one morning requested
by her mother to stay at home; notwithstand-
ing which, she was tempted to go out.  Upon
her return to her domestic roof, she  found
that the parent whom she had  so recently dis-
obliged, had expired  in her  absence.  The
awful spectacle of her mother's  corpse con-
nected with the filial disobedience which had 
40               REMORSE.
almost immediately preceded, shook her rea-
son from its seat: and she has ever since con-
tinued in a state of mental derangement.
  The punishment which remorse inflicts in
this world, although, in  many instances, ag-
gravated by  the prospect,  has  no necessary
reference to a future state of retribution.  A
man's conscience is  more than  a  household
god to him.   It is the private deity of his bo-
som.   The most solemn and efficacious warn-
ings against vice are, no doubt,  furnished  by
the doctrines of  revelation, which present
also  the most powerful encouragements to
the prosecution of a virtuous course.   But in-
dependently of all revealed truth,  there is a
doctrine of the  heart, a religion  of  feeling
rather than of belief. 
ESSAY VI.
               ON SOLITUDE.

  An hypochondriac should be a  hermit in
abstinence, but not in solitude.  With no less
beauty than truth, has the author of Rasselas
depictured the insanity of the astronomer,  as
gradually declining under the influence of so-
ciety and diversion.  "The sage  confessed,
that  since he had mixed in the  gay tumults
of life, and divided his hours by a  succession
of amusements, he found the conviction of his
authority over the skies fade gradually from
his mind ;  and began to trust less to an opin-
ion which he could never prove to others, and
which he now found subject to variations from
causes in which reason had no part.  If," says
he " I am  accidentally  left alone  for  a few
hours, my  inveterate persuasion  rushes upon
my soul; and my thoughts are chained down
by an irresistible violence: but they are soon
disentangled by  the Prince's conversation;
and  are instantaneously  released  at the en-
trance of Pekuah.  I am like a man habitually 
42
ON SOLITUDE.
 afraid of spectres, who is set at ease by a lamp,
 and  wonders at the  dread which  harassed
 him in the dark."
   Burton concludes his voluminous  work on
 Melancholy, with this summary precept: "Be
 not solitary: be not idle."
   The society, in the centre of which a per-
 son is placed, may  be  regarded as the atmo-
 sphere of his mind: and to one whose under-
 standing has been improved to any conside-
 rable degree of refinement or extent,  this
 mental atmosphere is of more importance to
 the vigour and proper condition, even of his
 body, than almost  any variety in the modifi-
 cation or proportion of those material ingre-
 dients with which his lungs are supplied by
 the external air.  A residence even in a great
 and polluted  city, which affords objects of in-
 terest, and motives to exertion, ought to be
 recommended more especially to an hypo-
 chondriacal or nervous patient, in preference
to the most  highly  oxygenated situation in
the country,  where there is not enough to
rouse the sluggishness, or to fill the  vacuity,
of the mind.
   Hypochondriasis is far from being a metro-
politan disease. The multiplicity of external
objects, which, in a great capital,  are conti-
nually giving a new  direction to  the  current 
               ON SOLITUDE.            43

of thought, is of course unfavourable to the
uniformity and self-absorption of melancholy.
There are, in such a situation,  so many rival
candidates for our  attention, as to  preclude
the exclusive  dominion  of any single  idea.
Although  a man be  not concerned as an actor
in the gay or the more serious tumults  of the
world, he may  find, as  a simple  spectator,
sufficient engagement to prevent that  dejec-
tion  of mind which is apt to arise from its
being unemployed.  Even walking the streets
of London affords  abundant materials for
amusement and  reflection.
  A rage  for  rural charms is at the present
day a matter more perhaps of fashion than of
feeling. A pretended  relish for the beauties
of the country is found to be by no means in-
compatible with a  real attachment to vices
which are considered as  appropriate  to the
town; although in  fact the most degrading
kinds of vice  are  at least as prevalent at a
distance from, as in the centre of, the capital.
Intemperance, both  in eating and drinking, is
especially  predominant in remote towns and
provinces  where the inhabitants often devote
a large portion of the day to the pleasures of
the table,  from having no other resource for
the disposal of their time.  Hence perhaps it
may be explained how a country clergyman, 
44
ON SOLITUDE.
more particularly, where the dull monotony
of his life is not  diversified by literature, or
animated  by devotion, is apt to sink into the
gloom of  hypochondriasis,  or into the gross-
ness of mere animal indulgences.
  To one who has principally resided in the
middle of a great city, an  entire  and perma-
nent removal from it is a doubtful and some-
what dangerous experiment.  The shades of
solitude, it is to be feared, may prove too dark
for  him who has been long used to  the sun-
shine of society.
  I once knew a man who, at the meridian of
his reputation, withdrew from the performance
of his professional duty, and the useful display
of his transcendent talents  in this metropolis,
to enjoy, as  he thought, in  the obscurity of a
rustic retirement, the solace of seclusion and
repose. But he had not long been in this state
of falsely anticipated  happiness, before he fell
into a sottish melancholy.  He who had  been
distinguished by his public addresses  in favor
of temperance, and  every other virtue, be-
came himself a victim to the most debasing
excesses.  Had not this person renounced the
conspicuous station which he previously filled
in society, the intoxication of public applause
might have  continued to supersede the  want
of any more vulgar inebriety; and for the in- 
ON SOLITUDE.
45
 spiratiqn of genius would never probably have
 been substituted the contemptible and destruc-
 tive excitement of  alcohol.
   An unnatural exile  from the world, so far
 from necessarily implying a superiority to its
 pollutions, often exposes a man even more
 imminently to the  risk of moral contamina-
 tion.  The voice of  the appetites and passions
 is heard more  distinctly amidst the stillness
 of retirement.   The  history of hermits, of
 monks, and even of nuns, serves abundantly
 to  demonstrate, that  sensuality may  be in-
 dulged  in solitude,  and debauchery practised
 in the desart.
   Although habits  of seclusion should be in
 general  avoided by the hypochondriacal, it
 ought also to be remembered, that there is a
 kind of society which  may prove more inju-
 rious  even than solitude to his bodily and in-
 tellectual health. We are not perhaps suffi- :
 ciently  aware, that  nervous complaints  are,!
 through  the medium  of sympathy,  scarcely .
 less infectious than febrile diseases.  Amongst
 many other instances  illustrative of this opi-
 nion,  I  particularly  recollect the case  of an
 amiable  young woman, who,  although  she
had been before remarkable for the  uniform
 cheerfulness  and gaiety of her temper,  be-
      7 
46            ON  SOLITUDE.
came decidedly, and often deplorably, deject-
ed, in consequence of having, for a length of
time, been domesticated with an elderly friend,
who was of a desponding and melancholy cast.
The contiguous atmosphere of an hypochon-
driacal, like that of a typhous patient, may, in
a certain  sense, be said to be impregnated
with contagion.
  It is principally on account of the barbarous
and  unphilosophical treatment,  but in  part
likewise it may be owing to the communica-
tive  nature of mental indisposition, that the
receptacles are too often found to be the nur-
series of insanity, where any, however small
an aberration from the ordinary  and healthy
standard of nervous excitement may, in due
time, be matured and  expanded  into the full
size  and frightful monstrosity of madness.
  The reference which has  been made to the
contagious quality of mental depression, is by
no means intended to  prevent, or in any de-
gree to discourage an occasional or even an
habitual association with the afflicted, when
we are able, by our society and sympathy, to
comfort or relieve them;  and  especially if,
from the obligations of gratitude or domestic
connection, they have more than an ordinary
claim upon our fellow-feeling and assistance. 
               ON SOLITUDE.            47

There is an 'antiseptic power in an active be-
nevolence which counteracts the putrescency
of melancholy; and has, in some instances,
proved an antidote even to  the  gangrene of
despair. 
 
ESSAY VII.
EXCESSIVE STUDY,  OR APPLICATION  OF MIND.
Universal plodding poisons up
The nimble spirits in the arteries ;
As motion and long-during action tires
The sinewy vigour of the traveller."       Love's Labour Lost.
   Although intemperate study be not one of
those modes of excess, against which it is pe-
culiarly necessary to guard the youth of the
present generation ; there is no one, I am  con-
vinced, from which more mischievous  and
dreadful consequences have sometimes origi-
nated. Too often talents have been sacrificed
to acquisitions, and knowledge purchased at
the expense of understanding.  Literary glut-
tons may not unfrequently be met with, who,
intent only  upon feeding a voracious appetite
Cor books, accumulate gradually a mass of in-
digested matter, which oppresses, and in time
destroys altogether  the power  of intellectual
assimilation.  The learning of such men lies
a dead weight upon  the mind; and, instead of
enriching its substance, or adding to its vigor, 
50
EXCESSIVE STUDY.
serves only to obstruct the freedom, or to im-
pede  the  activity  of its  operations.   The
mental enlargement which is thus produced,
may be compared, not to that natural  and
healthy growth which is attended by a pro-
portionate increase of strength, but rather to
the distension of tympanites, or to the morbid
dilatation of a dropsy. What is called a learned
man, is often only a lazy man in disguise, with
whom reading is a refuge from the more stre-
nuous  task of reflection.  A reformation has
taken place with regard to literature  as well
as religion.  With the more rational part of
mankind, wisdom is no longer thought to con-
sist in poring  over  books,  any more  than
counting beads is now regarded as devotion.
  Many years ago I was consulted with res-
pect to an idiotic man of erudition.   It was a
case of idiocy arising from an overstrained in-
tellect. The understanding had been broken
down,  in  consequence of having been  over-
loaded.  The head of the patient, in its best
estate, might have been compared to  a pawn-
broker's shop, which is furnished principally
with other people's goods; a repository mere-
ly for  ideas, not a soil out of which  an idea
ever grew.
    Since  the occurrence of the  preceding
case, I was desired to give my opinion in an- 
EXCESSIVE STUDY.
51
other, which was considerably different in the
circumstances attending it, although origi-
nating apparently from a somewhat similar
cause.  A  young man of very superior ta-
lents, a  member at that time of one of the
colleges of Oxford, had applied most intense-
ly to his studies, with a view to the acquisi-
tion of the highest honours of the university,
which, however, he was suddenly thrown into
despair of attaining, by some new and unex-
pected rules, that were introduced with re-
gard to the mode or the subject of the exami-
nations.  There was  no just ground for his
despondency in consequence of this innova-
tion ;  but the idea of possible defeat, where he
had been previously  confident of victory, so
dwelt upon,  and harassed his mind, as to
throw it at last into a state of temporary disor-
der,  and the  most excessive irritation.   This
irritation was accompanied by a singular and
sometimes ludicrous caprice. He deliberated
for a long time before he could determine on
the most indifferent proceeding: and he had
scarcely acted upon,  before he invariably re-
pented of his decisions.   I remember calling
upon him one afternoon, and finding him still
ia bed, from not having as yet been able to
determine whether he should put on his  pan-
taloons, or small clothes, for the day.  He at 
52          EXCESSIVE STUDY.
 length fixed upon the latter ; but had not been
 long risen, before he changed that for a dif-
 ferent dress.  Every thing he did, he regret-
 ted having done ; and of what he had neglect-
 ed to do, he regretted the omission.
   It was for no  long period that the patient
 remained in this state of imbecility.  He re-
 covered, after a time, the entire possession of
 his excellent understanding ; obtained all the
 objects of his academical ambition ; and is at
 present a very respectable member of a learn-
 ed profession.
   Although the intellectual faculties will al-
 ways be in danger of debility or disorder from
 the too intense or too long continued exer-
 cise of them ;  this will be still more likely to
 take place, when the exercise of them has
 been confined to  one or  but a few subjects.
 By sufficiently diversifying the mode, we may
protract almost indefinitely the  period  of ex-
ertion. Change of employment  is often found
to answer the same end as an entire cessation
from it.  The sense of fatigue, for instance,
which  we  experience from the  use of our
limbs, may be relieved, not merely by rest, but
also by again using them in a different man-
ner.   On a similar principle, if we have been
reading, or  thinking  upon any subject  until
the attention be exhausted, we almost uniform- 
EXCESSIVE STUDY.           53
ly find the miud to be again roused and invigo-
rated by directing it to a subject of a different
nature.  A person in whose constitution there
is reason to suspect a tendency to mental dis-
order, not  only ought to be guarded against
too long-protracted or intense thinking; but it
should likewise be  recommended to him to
avoid, as much as possible, thinking upon ques-
tions of a very intricate and perplexing nature.
   There are few walks of literature in which
he may not be allowed to amuse himself, pro-
vided he shun with care the endless labyrinth
of metaphysical speculation.   Scarcely can it
appear desirable, or even safe, to attend much
to subjects, where the restlessness  of doubt
so seldom terminates  in the repose of convic-
tion ; or at least, where the labour of the  re-
search is never likely to be rewarded by the
importance of the discovery.
8 
 
ESSAY VIII.
VICISSITUDE A  CAUSE,  AND CHARACTERISTIC
    SYMPTOM  OF INTELLECTUAL  MALADY.

   Vicissitude constitutes one of the most re-
markable features, in the character of mental
derangement, as well as one of the  most fre-
quent causes  of its production.
   There is no radical distinction between the
fury of madness  and the  sullen  repose* of
melancholy.   They are found in the same in-
dividual frequently, and often regularly, to al-
ternate.   The opposite states of this disease,
in many cases occur as punctually as  the hot
and cold stages of an intermittent  fever.   A
frightful hilarity portends the certainty of sub-
sequent depression.  There is often in  such
  * This expression is meant to refer to the external physiognomy and
demeanour, rather than to the internal state of the melancholic.  Under
tlie influence of some intense emotion, a man may be made to assume at
once the immobility  of marble; but he does not in that case become stone
■within.  He stands fixed as  a statue, but not as insensible. There is of-
ten a spasmodic chilliness of the surface, which only serves to aggravate
that mental fever from which it originates. The supposed torpor of
melancholy is like that of a  child's top, which, after having been lashed
into the most rapid agitation, is said, from its apparent composure, to be
asleep. 
56
vicissitude.
cases,  an equinoctial  condition of the  mind,
which is almost equally divided between the
light of joy, and the darkness of despondency.
These remarks apply by no means exclusively
to the unequivocally insane.  They refer even
more particularly to those  minor degrees,
those faint and  scarcely discernible shades,
those evanescent  approximations towards
mental disorder, the existence of which might
elude the vigilance, or be concealed from the
sagacity of any but an experienced and  well-
instructed eye. Sudden, and apparently cause-
less elevations, and equally abrupt and unrea-
sonable declensions of vivacity,  mark a  mor-
bid condition of the intellectual frame.   A so-
ber cheerfulness, a quiet happiness, an  even-
ness and tranquillity  of mind, are circumstan-
ces which not only indicate the  actual posses-
sion, but are necessary also to secure the con-
tinuance of intellectual health.  Temperance
ought to be regarded as a virtue of more com-
prehensive range than what relates merely to
a salutary discipline in diet.  Temperance im-
plies a certain regulation of all the feelings,
and a due but restricted  exercise  of all the
faculties of the frame.  There  is no species
of passion or exertion which may not pass the
limits of a wholesome sobriety.  A man may
be intemperately joyful or sorrowful,  intern- 
vicissitude.             57
perate in his hopes or in his fears, intempe-
rate in his friendships or hostilities, intempe-
rate  in the  restlessness of his extravagance,
or in his greediness of gain.  It may be re-
marked, that, especially in this grand mart of
trade,  many cases of mental derangement
originate from the alternations of mind attend-
ing upon the vicissitudes of  commercial spe-
culation.  I  recollect the case of an unfortu-
nate young  man who became  a victim to the
disastrous issue of a variety of mercantile ad-
ventures.  The same blow  which  deranged
his affairs, produced a disorder of his reason.
His finances and his  faculties fell  together.
The phantoms of imagination indeed survi-
ved, and seemed  to hover over the ashes of
his understanding.  The demon of specula-
tion, which  had before misled his mind, now
possessed it entirely.   His  projecting spirit,
which was always more than  moderately in-
trepid, took, in the maniacal exaltation of his
fancy, a still bolder and sublimer flight. Some
of his schemes reminded me of another mad-
man that I had heard of, who planned,  after
draining the Mediterranean,  to plant it with
apple trees,  and establish a cider manufactory
on the coast.
  The progress towards intellectual disorga-
nization is  sometimes rapid,  but more fre- 
 58            vicissitude.

 quently it is tardy in its course.  The mental
 fabric is often thrown into ruins by a single
 and unanticipated bl rw: but in the majority
 of instances, many pulls, and frequently-reit-
 erated concussions are necessary, previous to
 the last crash of dilapidation.
   Although  an evenness  and quietness  of
 temper may, in many  cases, appear connate
 or constitutional, equanimity ought not on that
 account to be regarded as altogether out  of
 the reach of acquisition. The feelings which
 have been subject to an habitual restraint will
 seldom  be found to rise  above their proper
level.  Disproportionate emotions may often,
in early life at least, be corrected, in the same
 manner as  deformities and irregularities  of
 bodily shape are by  means of constant pres-
 sure forced into a more natural figure and di-
 mension. 
ESSAY IX.
              WANT OF SLEEP.

  Oestinate vigilance is not only one of the
most uniform symptoms,  but also very gene-
rally precedes,  and,  in a few instances,  may
even itself provoke an attack of mental de-
rangement.  It is rather, I am aware, to the
agitating passion or the corroding anxiety, by
which the want of sleep  is  most frequently
occasioned,  that we  ought in many cases to
ascribe the insanity which ensues.  But even
when watchfulness cannot be regarded as the
only agent in inducing the disease,  it assists,
and in no small degree aggravates the opera-
tion of the other causes.  That this  should be
the case, it will not be difficult to shew from
circumstances obviously attending the state of
sleep.
  The variety and rapid  succession of ideas
so remarkable in dreams, cannot but  tend to 
60           WANT OF SLEEP.
counteract in some measure that habit of un-
varied thought,  which,  when it occurs, has
been too generally found the melancholy pre-
lude to insanity.
  Sleep generally suspends, and by this means
preserves in vigour, the voluntary power which,
in our  waking  state,  we possess  over our
thoughts.   It is  reasonable  to suppose, that
the power of the  will over  the  current of
thought, like that which it exercises over the
voluntary muscles,  should require, in order
permanently to  retain its influence, to be re-
cruited  by frequent and regular intervals of
repose.   Where such repose therefore has
been  denied  for a considerable  period,  it
seems inevitable that this power should gradu-
ally decline, and be at  length altogether de-
stroyed.
  Sleep often affords a temporary relief from
those tumultuous passions, or gnawing solici-
tudes, which, if  their operation  were not in
tins way frequently interrupted, would, in no
long time, induce a disorder of the mental fa-
culties.   Constant vigilance  will be likely to
produce  insanity, by subjecting the mind ha-
bitually  to that increased violence  of  feeling,
which we  must  have observed to take place
during the darkness, the silence, and the soli-
tude of the night.   It is  astonishing,  in how 
WANT OF SLEEP.
61
 much more lively a manner we  are  apt, in
 these circumstances, to be impressed by ideas
 that present themselves, than when the atten-
 tion of the mind is dissipated, and its sensibi-
 lity, in  a considerable degree, absorbed by the
 action of light, sound, and that variety of ob-
jects, which, during the day, operate upon our
 external senses.
   From such considerations it will be evident,
 that any strong feeling, or any favourite idea,
 will be  apt  to acquire an ascendency,  and, in
 some instances, a dominion completely des-
 potic over the mind, when it becomes the sub-
ject, as, in cases of obstinate vigilance, it in-
 evitably will be, of an habitual nocturnal me-
 ditation.
   I have been often solicited to recommend a
 remedy for wakefulness, or  broken and un-
 tranquil sleep, by hypochondriac patients who
 had previously tried all  the medicinal, or di-
 etetic opiates, as well as other methods for
producing the same  effect, without obtaining
the object of their wishes.  I in these cases
advised the  use of the cold or the warm bath,
and generally with decided advantage.  The
cold bath is  by means  a novel  prescription,
for the malady we are speaking of.  We find
Horace  long ago recommended it,
      " Transnanto Tiberim, somno qiubus est opus alto."
        9 
62
WANT OF SLEEP.
   Next to involuntary vigilance ranks the al-
 most equal distress of anxious  and agitated
 slumber. It is sufficiently known that the con-
 dition of the mind in sleep is modified by the
 occurrences and impressions of the previous
 day. But we are not, perhaps, equally aware,
 that dreams cannot  fail to have a certain de-
 gree of reciprocal influence  upon  our ideas
 and sensations during the waking state.  The
 good or the bad day of the sick man, depends
 much upon his good or his bad night:  and al-
 though  in a  less degree, the same circum-
 stance affects alike those who are considered
 as in a condition of health. The due digestion
 of our food is scarcely  more necessary to
 health, as it  relates even to the  body, and
 more especially as it concerns the mind, than
 the soundness and serenity of our  slumbers.
 After a night of fancy-created  tempest,  it is
 not to be  expected that  we should at once
 regain our composure. The heaving of the
 billows continues for some trine after the sub-
 sidence of the storm.  The troubled  vibrations
survive the delusion which at first occasioned
them.  The nerves, for some time after the
cause has ceased, retain the impression of dis-
order.  The feelings with which we awake,
determine, in a great measure, the  character
of the future day.  Each day, indeed, may be 
WANT OF SLEEP.
63
regarded  as a miniature model of the whole
of human life ; in which its first seldom fails
to give a cast  and  colour to  its succeeding
stages.   The comfortable  or opposite condi-
tion of our consciousness immediately subse-
quent upon sleep, for the  most part indicates
the degree in which we possess a sound  and
healthy state of constitution. With those who
are in the unbroken vigour of  life, the act of
awakening is an act  of  enjoyment;  every
feeling is refreshed, and every faculty is  in a
manner regenerated; it is a new birth to a new
world.  But to the hypochondriacal  invalid,
or to the untuned and unstrung  votary  and
victim of vicious or frivolous dissipation, the
morning light is felt as an intruder.   During
his perturbed and restless process of conva-
lescence from a diseased dream,  he realises,
to a certain extent, the well-pictured condi-
tion of the unhappy heroine of the iEneid.
     " Revoluta toro est, oculisque errantibus alto,
     Quxsivit coelo lucem, ingemuitque reperta." 
 
ESSAY X.
              INTEMPERANCE.

  " Living  fast,"  is a metaphorical phrase,
which, more accurately  perhaps than is in
general imagined,  expresses  a literal  fact.
Whatever hurries the action of the corporeal
functions  must tend to abridge the period of
their  probable  duration.  As the wheel  of a
carriage  performs a certain number of rota-
tions before it arrives at its destined goal; so
to the arteries of the human frame  we may
conceive that there is  allotted  only a certain
number of pulsations before their vital energy
is entirely exhausted.  Extraordinary longe-
vity has seldom been known to occur, except
in persons of a remarkably tranquil and slow-
paced circulation.
  But  if intemperance merely curtailed the
number of our days, we should have compa-
ratively little  reason to find fault with  its
effects.  The idea of " a short life and a mer-
ry one," is  plausible enough, if it  could be
generally realized.  But  unfortunately, what 
66
INTEMPERANCE.
 shortens existence is calculated also to make
 it melancholy.  There is no process by which
 we can distil life, so as to separate from it all
 foul or heterogeneous matter,  and leave no-
 thing behind but drops of pure defecated hap-
 piness. If the contrary were  the case,  we
 should scarcely be disposed to blame the vital
 extravagance of the voluptuary, who, provid-
 ed that his sun shine brilliant and unclouded
 as long as it continue above his head, cares
 not, although it should set at an earlier hour.
  It is seldom that debauchery separates at
 once the thread of vitality. There occurs, for
 the most part, a wearisome and painful inter-
 val between the first loss of a capacity for
 enjoying life,  and the period of its ultimate
 and entire extinction.  This circumstance, it
 is to be presumed, is out of the consideration
 of those persons who, with a prodigality more
 extravagant than that of  Cleopatra, dissolve
 the pearl of health in the goblet of intempe-
 rance.   The slope towards  the grave  these
 victims of indiscretion find  no easy descent.
 The scene is  darkened long before the cur-
tain falls.  Having exhausted prematurely all
 that is delicious in the cup of life, they are
 obliged to swallow afterwards the bitter dregs.
Death  is the last,  but not the worst result of
intemperance. 
INTEMPERANCE.
67
  Punishment, in  some instances, treads al-
most instantly upon the heels of transgres-
sion ; at others, with a more tardy, although
an equally certain step, it follows the commis-
sion of moral irregularity.   During the course
of a long-protracted career of excess, the ma-
lignant power of alcohol, slow and insidious
in its operation, is  gnawing incessantly at the
root; and often  without spoiling the bloom,
or seeming to impair the vigour of the frame,
is clandestinely hastening the period of its in-
evitable destruction. There is no  imprudence
with regard to health that does not tell:  and
those are not unfrequently found to suffer in
the event most essentially, who do not appear
to suffer immediately from every individual
act  of indiscretion.  The work of decay is, in
such instances, constantly going on, although
it never loudly indicate its advance  by  any
forcible impression upon the senses.
  A feeble constitution  is,  in general, more
flexible than a vigorous one.   From yielding
more readily, it is  not so soon broken by the
repeated assaults of indiscretion.  A disorder
is, for the most part, violent in proportion to
the stamina of the  subject which it attacks.
Strong men have energetic diseases.   The
puny valetudinarian seems to suffer less injury
from indisposition, in consequence of having 
68
INTEMPERANCE.
 been more used to  it.   His lingering, and
 scarcely more than semivital existence is often
 protracted beyond that of the more active, vi-
 vacious, and robust.
   But it ought to be in the knowledge of the
 debauchee, that each attack of casual or re-
 turn of periodical distemper, deducts  some-
 thing from the strength and structure  of his
 frame.  Some leaves fall from the tree of life
 every time that its trunk is  shaken.   It  may
 thus be disrobed of its beauty, and made to be-
 tray the dreary nakedness of a far advanced
 autumn, long before that season could, in the
 regular course of  nature,  even have com-
 menced.
   The  distinction, although incalculably im-
 portant, is not sufficiently  recognized betwixt
 stimulation and nutrition ; between repairing
the expenditure of the fuel by a supply of sub-
stantial  matter, and urging  unseasonably, or
to an inordinate  degree, the violence of the
heat and the brilliancy of the flame.
   The strongest liquors are  the  most  weak-
ening.  In proportion to the power which the
draught itself possesses, is that which it ulti-
mately deducts from the person  into whose
stomach it is habitually received.   In a state
of ordinary health, and in  many cases of dis-
ease, a generous diet may be safely and even 
INTEMPERANCE.
69
advantageously recommended.  But, in diet,
the generous ought to be  distinguished from
the stimulating, which latter is almost exclu-
sively, but on account  of its  evil  operation
upon the frame, very improperly called good
living.  The indigent  wretch, whose scanty
fare is barely sufficient to supply the materials
of existence, and the no-less-wretched debau-
chee, whose luxurious indulgence daily accele-
rates the period of its  destruction,  may both
be said, with equal  propriety, to live hard.
Hilarity is not health, more especially when
it has been roused by artificial means.  The
fire of intemperance often illuminates, at the
very time that it is consuming, its victim.   It
is not until after the blaze of an  electric cor-
ruscation, that its depredations are exposed.
   Stimuli sometimes produce  a  kind of artifi-
cial genius, as well  as  vivacity.   They lift a
man's intellectual faculties, as  well as his feel-
ings of enjoyment, above their ordinary level.
And if, by the same means, they  could be kept
for any length of time, in that state of exal-
tation, it  might constitute something like a
specious apology for having had recourse to
them.   But unfortunately, the excitement of
the system can in no instance  be urged above
its accustomed and natural pitch, without this
being succeeded by a correspondent degree of
        10 
70           INTEMPERANCE.
depression.   Like the fabulous stone of Sisy-
phus, it invariably begins to fall as soon as it
has reached the summit;  and the rapidity of
its subsequent descent is almost invariably in
proportion to the  degree of its previous ele-
vation. Genius, in this manner forcibly raised,
may be compared to those fire-works, which,
after having made a brilliant figure in the sky
for a very short time, fall to the ground, and
exhibit a miserable fragment, as the only re-
lic of their preceding splendour.
  It is no very uncommon thing, I believe, in
this dissipated metropolis, for  a  woman of
gaiety and fashion, previous to the reception
of a party, to light up, by artificial means, her
mind, as  well as her rooms, that both may be
shewn off to  the best  advantage.   But the
mental lustre which is thus kindled, goes out
even sooner than that of the lamps:  and the
mistress  of the entertainment often finds her-
self deserted by her  spirits,  long  before her
company is dispersed.  In  like manner, a man
who is meditating a composition for the pub-
lic, is often  tempted to rouse the torpor, or to
spur the  inactivity of his  faculties, by some
temporary incentive.  Gay, if I mistake not,
in one of his letters observes, that " he must
be a bold man who ventures to write without
the help  of wine."   But, in general, it may 
INTEMPERANCE.
71
be remarked, that the cordials which an au-
thor may, on this account, be induced to take,
are  more likely to make  himself,  than  his
readers, satisfied with his productions.  The
good things which a person, under the influ-
ence of factitious exhilaration, maybe stimu-
lated to say, are often, in  their effects, the
very worst things that could possibly have es-
caped him.  From a want of sufficient steadi-
ness or discretion, sparks sometimes may fall
from the torch of genius, by which it becomes
a firebrand of mischief.
  We are  apt to complain of the heaviness and
wearisomeness of volumes, where the pains
which have been taken by the writer have not
been sufficiently concealed.  But the appa-
rent result  of excessive care is much to be
preferred  to the  heedless effusion of a mind,
over which it is too obvious that the judgment
has in a great measure suspended its control.
It is far better that a work should smell of the
lamp than of the  cask.
  Intemperance is a resource  especially to be
dreaded by men of more than common acute-
ness of feeling and vivacity  of imagination.
Such persons are in general least able to sub-
mit to the ennui  of vacancy,  or patiently to
bend under the  leaden weight of incurable
sorrow.  On which  account,  they  too  fre- 
7&           INTEMPERANCE.
 quently endeavour to fill up a want of inte-
 rest, or to disperse the cloud which  darkens
 their horizon, by transient remedies that per-
 manently ruin—by momentary reliefs, which
 tend only to destroy more effectually the last
 wreck of their comfort and constitution.  Un-
 der certain  circumstances, the motive is al-
 most irresistible, to seek a repose from suf-
 fering in the opiate of intoxication; in  that
 kind of sleep of the sensibility, out of which
 the awakening  cannot fail to be attended with
 an accumulated horror. In the flood of intem-
 perance, the afflicted inebriate does not drown,
 he only dips his sorrow, which will in gene-
 ral be found to rise again,  with renovated vi-
 gour, from the transient immersion.   Wine,
 during the treacherous truce to misery which
 it affords, dilapidates the structure, and under-
 mines the very foundations, of happiness.
   The habit of indulgence in wine, is not more
 pernicious, than it is obstinate and tenacious
 in its hold, when it has once  fastened itself
 upon the constitution.  It is not to be conquer-
 ed by half measures:  no compromise with it
 is  allowable.  The victory  over it, in order to
 be permanent, must be perfect.  As long as
 there lurks a relic of it in  the frame, there is
 danger of a relapse of this moral malady, from
which there seldom is,  as  from physical dis- 
              INTEMPERANCE.           73

orders,  a gradual convalescence.   The man
who has been the slave of intemperance, must
renounce her altogether, or she will insensi-
bly reassume her despotic power.  With such
a mistress, if he seriously mean to discard her,
he  must indulge himself in no dalliance or
delay.   He  must not allow his lips a taste of
her former fascination.
  Webb, the celebrated walker, who was re-
markable for vigour, both of body and mind,
drank nothing but water.   He  was one day
recommending his  regimen to a friend  who
loved wine, and urged him with great ear-
nestness, to quit a course of luxury, by which
his  health and his intellects would be equally
destroyed.  The gentleman appeared  con-
vinced,  and told him " that he would conform
to his counsel,  though he thought he could
not change his course of life at once, but would
leave off strong liquors by  degrees."  " By
degrees!" exclaims the other with indigna-
tion : "  if you should unhappily fall  into the
fire, would you caution your servants to pull
you out only by degrees?"
  To reprobate the use  of strong  liquors al-
together, may be considered as a kind of pru-
dery in  temperance; as carrying this virtue
to an unnecessary and even preposterous ex-
tent.  But prudery,  it should be recollected, 
74           INTEMPERANCE.
 consists not so much in the excess of a virtue
 as in the affectation  of it.  The real prudes
 in regimen are those who " strain at a gnat,
 and swallow a camel;" who would have great
 scruple perhaps in drinking a glass  of  wine,
 but who would not hesitate every day of their
 lives to ingurgitate, in a pharmaceutical shape,
 draughts composed  principally of the worst
 and most concentrated spirits.  Tinctures are
 medicinal drams.  The habitual use of  them
 can be regarded only as a more specious and
 decorous mode of intemperance.  In this may
 be said to consist  the privileged debauchery
 of many a nervous valetudinarian.  A female
 of decorum and delicacy may, in  this  way,
 ruin, most effectually, her health, without, in
 the slightest degree, impairing her reputation.
 She  may allay the qualms of the  stomach,
 without the danger of occasioning any more
 disagreeable qualms  of conscience.
  It is  possible for  us  to be intemperate in
 our eulogy of  abstinence, and to violate mo-
 deration in our invectives against excess.  But
at the same time it is our duty to reflect, that
what is evil in its essence, no reduction of
quantity can convert  into good. Vice retains
its character throughout every gradation of
its scale.  In none of its descending degrees 
INTEMPERANCE.            75
can it produce any thing better than more di-
luted and mitigated mischief.
  The crime of intemperance, it must, after
all, be allowed,  is,  in a certain sense, a rela-
tive  thing.  Pope said,  that more than one
glass of wine was to him a debauch.  There
are multitudes who, without the intellectual
vigour, labour under the corporeal  imbecility
of that celebrated poet, and who ought, there-
fore, to be equally nice in their notions of ex-
cess.  The mischief, and of course the guilt of
intemperance, varies considerably  according
to the different sex, as well as other circum-
stances of the individual. To the constitution
of man, for instance, unnecessary incentive is
injurious; to that of woman incalculably more
so ; and to that of a woman in a state of preg-
nancy, it  involves the danger of two-fold de-
struction.  Females, in that  situation, are
loaded with a double responsibility.  By the
abuse  of  inebriating liquors,  they  incur the
risk  of child  murder, in addition  to that of
suicide.   Or, if the infant of  an intemperate
mother so far escape as to be  ushered  alive
into  the world, little physical vigour or intel-
lectual health can be expected from a human
being,  Whose  constitution  has been made  to
know the influence  of alcohol, before even it
was  exposed to that of air. 
7H           INTEMPERANCE.
   Men, who, from an equivocal felicity of con-
 stitution, are prevented, for a long time, from
 killing themselves by their excesses, are often
 the indirect means of destroying many of their
 fellow creatures.  Such persons are  referred
 to as living arguments, much  stronger than
 any inanimate logic to the contrary, of the in-
 nocuous  nature  of  intemperance.   In their
 countenances we may sometimes read the in-
 dications of almost  invulnerable  health.  It
 would be well, if also were inscribed there, in
 characters equally legible,  the  catalogue of
 convivial companions who have  fallen victims
 to their treacherous example.
   The unfortunate Burns  at one time  com-
 plained that those with whom he associated,
 were not satisfied with  his conversation, lux-
 urious as it  must have been,  unless he  gave
 them also a  slice of his constitution.   By uni-
 versal agreement, he must be condemned as
 unwisely lavish, who cuts up his vital principle
 for the entertainment of his friends.   On the
 other hand, a person may be thought by some
 too grudgingly  parsimonious of his fund  of
 health,  who would not lay out a little  of it
 upon extraordinary occasions, in solemnizing,
 according to the usual form, the  rites  of hos-
pitality, in heightening the warmth of sympa-
thy, or in promoting the  vivacity of convivial 
INTEMPERANCE.            77
 intercourse.   But that man's heart, it must be
 acknowledged, is of little value, which will not
 beat full and strong upon an empty  stomach.
 An after-dinner kind of friendship, the expres-
 sion of which acquires  new  ardour  at every
 fresh filling of the glass, must be expected to
 evaporate with the fumes of the liquor which
 inspired it.  The tide of liberal sentiment re-
 tires, in such cases, as soon as the animal spi-
 rits begin to ebb.   The heat produced by al-
 cohol ought not to be mistaken for  the glow
 of virtue.  He whose  pitch of generosity or
 goodness is regulated by the state of his cir-
 culation, is entitled to little confidence or res-
 pect,  in any of the important connections or
 social intercourses of life.  The steadiness of
 a sober and substantial  benevolence, is to be
 compared, only by way of contrast, to the pre-
 carious vicissitudes of that person's temper,
 with whom kindness is not a healthy habit,  but
 a feverish paroxysm, and who, although con-
 stitutionally, or in the ordinary course of his
life, sensual or selfish, may be occasionally
wrought  up, by factitious means, to the" eleva-
tion of a jovial and fugitive philanthropy.
  In connection with the subject of intempe-
rance, it may be proper to remark, that there
are cases in which extraordinary stimuli may
be useful in deducting  from the operation of
      11 
78           INTEMPERANCE.
causes still more injurious, or more rapidly
fatal in their effects.  When bodily pain, for in-
stance, has risen to a certain point, wine, bran-
dy, or laudanum, although they should always
with caution, may sometimes with propriety, be
applied; as, by affording temporary relief, they
spare for a time at  least, the wear and tear
that is produced by  too acute and violent sen-
sations.  Such a seasonable use of them may
be estimated upon the whole, as  a* saving to
the constitution.  It is likewise a doctrine of
some importance, and which ought to be acted
upon  by the medical practitioner, that when-
ever a patient expresses a violent appetite,
which, from his never having been known to
experience it before,  appears  to have been
created by his disease, it ought  in general
to be regarded as indicating what is subser-
vient to its cure.  As,  in the lower animals,
which are constitutionally deficient in reason,
instinct supplies its place ; so, during the pe-
riod that the mental power in man, is in some
measure impaired by bodily disorder, nature
provides him also with a temporary instinct,
which is still more sure in its dictates than the
reasoning faculty.
   We ought not to  dismiss the subject of the
present essay without remarking, that the best
way of attempting to conquer in another the 
INTEMPERANCE.            7Q
 vice of intemperance, especially when it  has
 been induced, as is very frequently the case, by
 some permanent or weighty cause of sorrow,
 is to picture to  the mind of the patient the
 agreeable change in his situation, which would
 be likely to arise  from an alteration in his
 mode of life, rather than to present to him
 those deeper shades of misery  which must
 successively ensue  from the continuance of
 his ignominious servitude, and habits of fatal,
 although joyless, indulgence.    The  latter,
 though  the  more common mode of endea-
 vouring  to effect the reformation  of an unfor-
 tunate inebriate, is in general calculated only
 to confirm and aggravate the evil, by sinking
 his spirits still lower, and, in some instances,
 perhaps  converting the languor of dejection
 into the  mental palsy of despair.  It is a con-
 dition scarcely distinguishable  from despair,
 which  can  alone  account for  the  obstinacy
 with which  many an intemperate person de-
 liberately pursues his disastrous  course.  In
 his mind, the heavy foot of calamity has tram-
 pled out every spark of hope.  He feels as if
 he could scarcely be in a more wretched, or
is ever likely to be in a better condition. The
 exaggerated  dimensions  of his present mi-
 sery, so completely fill his eye, as to prevent
him from seeing any thing beyond it.  He is 
80
INTEMPERANCE.
habitually in a state of agitation, or despon-
dency, similar to that in which suicide is com-
mitted.  His is only a more dilatory and das-
tardly  mode of self destruction.   He  may be
compared to a person who, in attempting to
cut his throat, from a want of sufficient  cour-
age or decision, lacerates it for some time, be-
fore he completely perpetrates his purpose.
          ON  THE USE  OF OPIUM.

   Inebriety  is not properly confined to the
use  of fermented liquors.  The tipplers x)f
laudanum are sots, although of another sort.
There is something  peculiarly plausible and
 seducing in  this  mode of fascinating  the
sensations.  Opium does not,  in  general,  as
wine  is apt  to  do, raise  a  tumult of  the
feelings, or involve the intellect in clouds ;
but acts more like oil poured  upon  a tumul-
tuous sea, which tends to allay the agitation of
the billows, and induces an agreeable stillness
and tranquillity.  Instead of lowering man to
a level with  the beasts,  it often invests him
for a time, with the consciousness and at least
fancied attributes  of a superior being ; but he
is soon stripped of his shadowy and evanes-
cent prerogative, and is made to suffer all the 
INTEMPERANCE.
81
horrors and humiliation of  a fallen angel.
The confessions of many a miserable hypo-
chondriac, who has been in the habit of  hav-
ing recourse u>opium for relief, justify this re-
presentation from the charge of caricature.
Grievous as is the depression which takes place,
as the second effect of fermented liquors, that
which succeeds to the excitement produced
by laudanum, is still  more  intolerable.  It is
of course a task less  difficult to refrain from
the former than the latter, when the latter has
been, for many years, regularly applied to for
temporary comfort or support, in a desertion
or  prostration of the spirits.   The  late Dr.
Heberden was of opinion, that it is more easy
to relinquish opium than wine : and therefore,
in cases which may seem to require either the
one or the other, he  recommends the former
in preference to the latter.  My own compa-
ratively contracted experience would incline
me, in the same circumstances, to give differ-
ent advice.
  I have known only one case in which an in-
veterate  opium taker  has  had   resolution
enough to dispel the  charm which  had  long
bound him to its use.  This patient was in the
custom of employing it in that concentrated
form of the drug, which has received the ap-
pellation of the black drop.   The dreadful 
83           INTEMPERANCE.
sensations which he  experienced for a con-
siderable period, after having refrained from
his wonted cordial, he was unable to express,
any more than the gratitude Which he felt to-
wards his physician, for having strenuously
and repeatedly,  and  at  length  successfully,
urged him to an abstinence from  so delusive
and bewitching a poison.
   When opium is employed as  a remedy, in
cases of merely physical  disease, it may not
be liable to the same objection; although, even
in that class of maladies, it ought to be in gene-
ral reserved for occasions of urgency or peril.
When used for a length of time, without any
considerable intervals, its bad effects upon the
constitution will  be  found  to  accumulate,
whilst  its alleviating  influence  over trouble-
some and painful symptoms, becomes almost
every day less observable.
PROSPERITY OFTEN A SOURCE OF INEBRIETY.

  The meaning of the word, stimulus, is in
general confined to fermented liquors, or  to
drugs, such as that which we have noticed in
the preceding section.  But it may, in a more
comprehensive and philosophical sense, be
made to  include, not only  what acts imme- 
INTEMPERANCE.            83
diately upon the stomach, but likewise a vast
variety of moral causes, which operate  more
directly upon the passions or imagination.  A
man may be intoxicated by good news as well
as by brandy.   In this way prosperity not un-
frequently proves as unwholesome as intem-
perance. Many have thus fallen victims of what
has been considered their  good fortune.  A
sudden  accession of opulence or honour will
often obscure  the faculties  as  much as  the
fumes of drunkenness.  A sudden gush of
happiness has been known to occasion imme-
diate death ; and in other instances has  given
rise to what is incalculably  worse, paroxysms
which have terminated in incurable insanity.
In the celebrated South  Sea speculation, it
was remarked that few lost their  reason in
consequence of the loss of their property, but
that  many were stimulated to madness by the
too abrupt accumulation of enormous wealth.
In other lotteries, as well as in the general
lottery of fife,  dreadful effects have, perhaps,
more frequently arisen from the prizes than
the blanks. It has often happened, that an ad-
venturer, in addition to the original price of
his ticket,  has  paid  for his  chance-gotten
wealth  by  a forfeiture of  his reason.   The
same turn of the wheel which has raised him
into  affluence, has sunk him also into idiocy, 
84           INTEMPERANCE.

or, by no advantageous change, has transform-
ed the mendicant into the maniac.
  Adversity, that" tamer of the human breast,"
acts, on the other hand, as a salutary sedative
upon the irritability of our frame ; and may
thus not only secure the subjugation  of our
passions, and protect the sanity of our intel-
lect ; but also may, in some instances,  tend to
protract life, almost in proportion as it deducts
from the vivacity of its enjoyment. 
ESSAY XI.
   THE EXCESS OF ABSTINENCE INJURIOUS.


   The author was once acquainted with a per-
son, who, not from  actual poverty, but from
an hypochondriacal fear of its approach, denied
himself, not merely the enjoyments, but like-
wise the wholesome comforts, and almost the
meagre necessaries of existence.  He insula-
ted himself from convivial and all  social in-
tercourse, that he might avoid the expenses
attending them ; and refused what was almost
essential to immediate sustenance,  lest he
might ultimately want the means of procuring
it.  He died, in fact, of extreme debility and
emaciation of mind  and body, from neither of
them having been regularly provided  with a
sufficient quantity of its appropriate aliment.
Temperance  is moderation.  In the  proper
sense, therefore, of the word, we may be in-
temperately abstemious, as well as intemper-
ately luxurious and  self-indulgent.  That de-
gree of privation which is unnatural or unrea-
        12 
86             ABSTINENCE.
sonable, proves no less destructive than su-
perfluous and superabundant gratification.  It
is possible, indeed, by simple and almost in-
noxious means, to relieve ourselves from the
burden of excess.  But it is not possible long
to bear with impunity, or even without a fatal
result, the inconveniences of a scanty and de-
ficient supply.   The  vital flame requires  a
perpetual renovation of fuel. The waste which
is incessantly going on, of internal strength,
must  be as incessantly compensated by rein-
forcement from without.  There is no inte-
rior and independent spring of action and sup-
port.   Sound  does not  exist in the  Eolian
harp,  but is produced merely by the breeze
that passes  over it.  Life in like manner is
not an essential part or ingredient of  the hu-
man body, but is every moment generated by
the external powers that are continually ope-
rating upon its sensible and delicate  organi-
zation.  Take  away the  action of air in the
former instance, and  that of all external sti-
muli  in the latter, the harp will instantly be-
come silent; and the body cease to  exhibit
any symptom or expression of vitality. 
ESSAY  XII.
 MORBID AFFECTIONS OF THE ORGANS OF SENSE.

   Morbid affections, of any individual organ
 of sense, for the most  part originate from,
 although  in  some instances  they produce a
 more general affection of, the nervous sys-
 tem.
   Lord Orrery, in his account of the life and
 writings of Swift, observes, that this  extraor-
 dinary man attributed to  a surfeit, that giddi-
 ness in the head which sometimes for a long-
er, and sometimes for a  shorter continuance,
 pursued him, until it  seemed to complete its
 conquest, by rendering him the exact image
 of one of his own Struldbruggs;  a miserable
 spectacle, devoid of every appearance of hu-
 man nature, except the outward  form.  The
 noble author's own  opinion,  with regard to
 the origin of Swift's mental disease, is both
 more ingenious and more plausible.   It may
 not be improper to quote his words.
   " The  absolute naturals are  owing to  a
 wrong formation of the brain, as to accident, 
88     MORBID AFFECTIONS OF THE
in their birth, or the dregs of fever, or other
violent distempers. The last was the case of
the Dean of St. Patrick's, according to the ac-
count sent me by his relations, Mr. Whiteway
and Mr. Swift, neither of whom, I think, make
the least mention of a deafness that from time
to time  attacked the Dean,  and made him
completely  miserable.  You will find him
complaining of this misfortune in several parts
of his writings, especially in the letters to Dr,
Sheridan.  Probably some internal  pressure
upon his brain, might first have affected the
auditory  nerves, and this by degrees have in-
creased so as entirely to stop up that fountain
of ideas which had before spread itself in the
most diffusive and  surprising  manner."
  Whatever may be the physiological  mode
of accounting for it, there is  scarcely any
symptom more frequently attendant upon ma-
niacal or hypochondriacal complaints than  a
defect, excess, or some  kind of derangement
in the faculty of hearing. The celebrated .Dr.
Johnson complains at one time, that he  could
not hear the town clock distinctly; and  at
another states that he distinctly heard his mo-
ther, who had been dead many years, calling
out " Sam."  Cowper, in one  of his letters to
a friend,  speaks thus of his infirmity; " I have
a perpetual din in my head; and though I am 
ORGANS OF SENSE.
89
not deaf, hear nothing right, neither my own
voice nor that of others.  I am under a tub,
from which tub accept my best love." There
are few hypochondriacs that do not know,  as
well as Cowper, what it is to be under a tub;
or who cannot perfectly understand and sym-
pathise with  this  invalid in most other pas-
sages where he refers to his morbid feelings.
  I once attended a nervous patient, who was
afflicted with a noise in her head,  which she
compared  to that of the  guns firing at the
Tower, in  the  neighbourhood of which she
then resided.*
  Mental impressions, we know, act upon the
nervous system in general, but especially up-
on that part of it  which is  more immediately
subservient to  the function of vision.   The
appearance of the eye is in general a faithful  ]
index  of the state of the mind.  It has been
remarked by those who have had peculiar op-
portunities of observing, that it is beyond even
the cunning of maniacal hypocrisy to disguise
the appropriate expression of the  eye.   The
eye seems to be  acted upon almost equally
by  all the passions, whether of a pleasurable

  * One circumstance that makes me recollect this  case is, that the
lady referred to had a very fine head of hair: and upon my advising
that her head should be shaved in order  that a large blister might be
applied to it, she objected to this sacrifice, and observed, that " she
would rather trust to Providence." 
90      MORBID AFFECTIONS OF THE
or painful nature.  It cannot then appear im-
possible, that highly-excited or long-protracted
emotion, should, in some instances, more es-
pecially where  there has  previously existed
any ocular debility or defect, act so powerfully
as to impair the structure, and altogether to
destroy the capacity of that organ.
  I had occasion to peruse many years ago, a
letter from a poor French emigrant, in which
he gave a pitiable account  of his situation;
and,  amongst other things, complained of so
great a degree  of opthalmic weakness, that
" he  was unable to shed even one tear for all
that he had left behind him."  This, no doubt,
arose in part from  the  many tears which he
had already shed.   The heart  is not so soon
exhausted as the eye.
  During my attendance upon the  Finsbury
Dispensary, a remarkable instance of dimness
of sight occurred, that had for some time previ-
ously been gradually approaching towards ab-
solute blindness, which, indeed,  had actually
taken place in one of the eyes.   The patient
first  perceived  the dimness the day  after
she had been frightened by witnessing a vi-
olent paroxysm of epilepsy, with which her
husband had been attacked the preceding
night.   Since that time, she  had herself be-
come,  although not in the least so before, ex- 
ORGANS OF SENSE.
91
tremely liable to fits; and was apt to fall down
insensible upon occasions of the slightest de-
gree of agitation or surprise.   Her dimness of
sight seemed to consist, not in an injured state
of the  eye, but in a debility of the nervous sys-
tem in general, which appeared more particu-
larly in that delicate  and exquisitely-irritable
part of it which is destined for the purposes of
vision.  The capacity of seeing with the  eye
that was not altogether blind, was intermit-
tent, " going and coming," to  use  her own
comparison,  " like the  sun,  when a  cloud
passes over it."  The  patient  had likewise
been  subject  to a deafness, that might be
traced to the same circumstance as gave  rise
to  her opthalmic malady.   Both  symptoms
had, in all probability, a common origin in ner-
vous weakness or derangement.
   Diseases of the eye, when they arise from
mental influence,  or from any disorder of the
general health, which in a large proportion of
cases,  upon a strict examination, they will be
found  to do, are not  to Jje cured by exterior
and local applications, bi|t principally, if not
exclusively, by those  means  which are calcu-
lated to restore  the strength, or  to reform the
character of the constitution.  Trifling with,
and teasing the eye with drops of lotion,* or
 * Philosophy, I fear, does not warrant much faith in a lotion."
                                 Johnson's Letters. 
93     MORBID AFFECTIONS OF THE

particles of unguent, is only betraying the pa-
tient into a flattering and faithless anticipation
of recovery, without any chance of  eradicat-
ing, or even reaching the root of, the disease.
   In the washes for the eye, opium  is, 1 be-
lieve, in general, if not the only efficient, at
least the most important ingredient.  It is said,
that a late celebrated oculist, after more than
forty years' trial of this substance as  an appli-
cation, which he  conceived  beneficial to the
eye, found out  at length that it had an injuri-
ous,  rather than a  salutary^ operation upon
that organ. It is a matter of equal surprise and
regret, that a fact so important should, for  so
long a period, have escaped the discernment
of any  watchful and intelligent observer ;  or
that it should  not  have before occurred to a
man at all in the habit of reasoning or reflec-
tion, that  opium, frequently administered for
a course of time, either to the stomach or the
eye,  must tend,  instead of strengthening,  to
impair its  structure, and more permanently to
disorder,  instead o^-e-establishing  its func-
tions,             w
   In  my  practice at the institution already
mentioned, a considerable number of the cases,
not only of opthalmia, but of acute and chro-
nic head-ache, and  other distressing nervous
affections, seemed  to have been occasioned 
                  ORGANS OF SENSE.           93

      by the  too strenuous and continued exertion
      of the optic nerve, in the minute operations
      of watch-making, an occupation which used to
      employ no small proportion of the mechanics
      in the neighbourhood of the Finsbury Dispen-
      sary.  Inflammation, or debility of the eye,
      cannot but be produced by the  excessive or
      unseasonable exercise of it: and the diseased
      state of that organ is  likely to  be communi-
      cated by sympathy to the brain in particular,
      and in many instances even to the whole ner-
      vous system. Hence, from an injury, often ap-
      parently unimportant, inflicted upon the deli-
      cate instrument of vision, hysteria, epilepsy,
      hypochondriasis, and even absolute and obsti-
* •   nate melancholy have not  unfrequently ori-
      ginated.
        One case of melancholy I well recollect,
      which was remarkable,  from the patient not
      having been afflicted by it until after the depri-
      vation  of his   sight.  Reflection upon that
      loss could not fail, for  a time, to have been
      itself a source  of uneasy feelings, but the con-
      tinuance and gradual aggravation of his de-
      pression, may  be better  accounted for, by his
      not being longer able, in consequence of this
      loss, to pursue his usual active  employment,
      by its withdrawing from him the natural and
      exhilarating stimulus of light, and by its pre-
               13 
 94      MORBID AFFECTIONS OF THE

 eluding  altogether  the  possibility of  that
 amusement and diversion of mind, which, in
 general, is so constantly derived from the con-
 templation of external objects ; to which may
 be added, that by confining the  sensibility
 within a smaller compass, it condensed and
 increased its force.  Notwithstanding all this,
 we find that the blind, when in society, and
 engaged in conversation, are in general more
 cheerful than other men. But from their appa-
 rent, and even aGtual state of spirits, when exhi-
 larated by social  intercourse, we  are by no
 means to infer, that their general  condition
 of feeling is of  the same  character.  Society
 is the proper sphere of their enjoyment.   In
 proportion as  the total obstruction of light   +
 shuts out the principal inlet to solitary amuse.
 ment, they must  feel delight  in that which
 arises from a communication with their fel-
 low-creatures.  Conversation acts upon them
 as a  dram; but when that stimulus is with-
 drawn, their depression is likely to  be aggra-
 vated by the temporary elevation which it had
 induced.   This, however, does not appear to
 be uniformly  the  case.   I knew a  man of a
 superior understanding, who, according to vul-
 gar prejudice and phraseology, had the mis.
fortune to  be  blind.  The conversation hap-
 pened to turn, in his presence, upon a person 
            ORGANS OF SENSE.          95

who was subject, without any apparent cause,
to a lowness of spirits, which, though many
things had been tried, nothing had been able
to remove.  Upon the blind man being asked
what he thought would be most likely to cure
the malady of this mental invalid, he empha-
tically replied, " put out his eyes." 
 
ESSAY XIII,
 MENTAL DERANGEMENT NOT INDICATIVE OF
     CONSTITUTIONAL VIGOUR OP MIND.

  An insane patient, who had been so for
about a year, and had olifce before been af-
flicted in the same way, was, on account of
his cries disturbing the neighbourhood, remo-
ved to an asylum at some distance from town.
In consequence of circumstances attending his
removal, he caught  cold, which was imme-
diately followed by symptoms of  malignant
sore throat and  intermittent fever.   These
complaints were speedily relieved by the libe-
ral administration of bark and wine:  and the
patient  afterwards had  no threatening  of a
relapse to his insanity.   The result in this in-
stance  of  tonic  and  stimulating  remedies
served somewhat to  countenance an opinion
which the author  had long been inclined to
entertain, that  remedies of  an invigorating
character may be applied with safety, and
even advantage,  in certain  cases  of mental
derangement. 
 98      INSANITY IMPLIES DEBILITY.

   Violence  is not strength.  In typhus fever,
 for instance, of which, in its advanced stage,
 delirium is  the most prominent and alarming
 symptom,  excessive  debility  constitutes  the
 characteristic, if not even the essence of the
 disease. This delirium seldom comes on un-
 til the strength  of the  patient has arrived at
 almost its lowest  point of reduction; better
 evidence  can scarcely be required, that  the
 former is produced by the latter:  and, from
 analogy, it may njjrunfairly be inferred, that
 in other cases where phrenzy takes place, it
 may arise from  a similar cause.  This analo-
 gy might be corroborated by other maladies;
 hysteria, for instance, which, although it is
 most apt to occur in  relaxed constitutions,
 and although its violent attacks are generally
 occasioned by circumstances immediately pre-
 ceding them, that weaken or exhaust,  often
 exhibits symptoms of morbid energy, much
 greater than the patient would have been ca-
pable of displaying in a state of the most per-
fect health and vigour.
  These fugitive  and abrupt exhibitions of
morbid energy are very far  from  indicating
genuine strength, which shews itself  only in
a capacity for  regular and continued  action.
The human  machinery is of so complicated a
structure,  and its motions, although various, 
        INSANITY IMPLIES DEBILITY.      99

are all so connected and dependent upon each
other, that a derangement in one part, may
produce a temporary augmented action in the
whole machine; in the same manner as  the
wheels of a watch, if the balance be removed,
will run down with increased and inordinate
force.
  Mental diseases are well illustrated by those
of the  body.  The paroxysms of mania  are
convulsions of the mind*; those of melancho-
lia its paralysis.  It is  a common, but an ill-
founded notion, that madness, in any of its
modifications,  arises for the  most part from
an excess of intellectual vigour:  it is not in
every case, but in many cases it is, a symptom
of radical imbecility, or of premature decay.

  * Mania in general bears a striking analogy to chorea. Constant,
irregular, and involuntary motions of the body characterise the one:
motions, precisely correspondent of the mind, constitute the other. 
 
ESSAY XIV.
 PHYSICAL  MALADY THE OCCASION OF MFNTAL
                 DISORDER.

   In the preceding  essay, an instance was
 stated,  in which derangement of mind seem-
 ed to  have been cured by the opportune oc-
 currence of a bodily complaint.  I recollect a
 remarkable case, in which, on the other hand,
 a derangement of the body unequivocally pro-
 duced a disorder of the understanding.  This
 case occurred at one of those critical periods
 of life,  at  which the female sex are particu-
 larly liable to an  anomalous variety of dis-
 eases,  especially to those to which there is
 any  hereditary or constitutional  predisposi-
 tion.  The poor woman fancied that she saw
 her bed encompassed with a legion of devils,
 impatient to hurry her to  eternal torments.
 She  derided medicine, and  obstinately and
haughtily resisted its application.   In a very
short time,  however,   an  alteration  having
taken place in her  physical condition, she re-
pented of her folly, and smiled  at the men-
        14 
102         PHYSICAL  MALADY, ^C.
tion of her former terrors.*  To  so humilia-
ting a degree do the floating particles of mat-
ter which surround, and still more those which
enter into  the  interior  composition of our
frame,  exhibit their influence in exciting, re-
pressing, or disordering the phenomena of hu-
man  intelligence !  " Toi  qui  dans ta  folie
prends arrogamment le  titre de Hoi de la na-
ture; toi qui mesures et la terre et les cieux ; toi
pour qui ta vanite s'imagine que le tout a ete
fait, parceque tu es intelligent, ilne fautqu'un
leger accident, qu'une atome deplacee, pour
te degrader, pour te ravir  cette intelligence,
dont tu parois si tier."
   By being  so much in the habit of observing
the influence of physical causes upon the men-
tal powers and  feelings,  the  practitioners  of
medicine  are particularly in danger  of lean-
ing  towards  the  doctrine  of  materialism.
Speculations with regard to the nature  of the
vital or intelligent  principle  in man, are in-
volved in so much obscurity, as to allow greater
scope for the  display of a fertile imagination,
  * It may be here not out of place to remark, that in those cases in
which mental derangement has originated from a physical state that ex-
ists only for a short period, or from fhe sudden impression of an unlook-
ed-for calamity, an expectation of cure may, for the most part, be  not
unreasonably entertained. But when, on the other hand, by a life of
debauchery, or the corroding operation of any chronic passion, the struc-
ture of the mind has been disorganized, there is in general little hope
from either medical or moral regimen, of an entire and permanent res-
toration. 
           PHYSICAL MALADY,  §C.       103

 than for the sober exercise of the  reasoning
 faculty.   The clouds in which this  subject is
 enveloped, the rays of genius may illuminate,
 but cannot disperse. The unwarrantable bold-
 ness and decision with which many are apt to
 speak upon a question, which, from an incu-
 rable deficiency of data, admits of no satisfac-
 tory conclusion, argues a more than ordinary
 imbecility, rather than any superiority of un-
 derstanding.   Genuine  intrepidity of every
 species, is  naturally allied to modesty.  There
 is a chaste and sober scepticism.  When  we
 profess that there is no moral evidence so im-
 maculately clear,  as  to preclude all obscura-
 tion  of doubt, we acknowledge merely the
 present imperfection and immaturity  of our
 nature.  A peremptory positiveness of opin-
 ion, as well as a rashness of action, is natural
 to the ardour and inexperience of youth ; but
 diffidence gradually grows upon declining life.
 Unlimited dogmatism, in almost  every case,
 affords suspicion of very limited information.
 In the degree in which our actual knowledge
 advances, we increase likewise our acquaint-
 ance with its comparative deficiency.   As the
 circle of intellectual light expands, it widens
proportionably the circumference of apparent
darkness. 
 
ESSAY XV.
      ON THE ATMOSPHERE OF LONDON.

  It is novso much the heat itself, as the va-
rious and accumulated pollution with which, in
the warmer  months, the atmosphere of the
metropolis is impregnated, that tends to dis-
order and debilitate the  constitution of its in-
habitants.

    " It is not air: but floats a nauseous mass
    " Of all obscene, corrupt, offensive things."*

Happy are they, who, unconfined by profes-
sional or any other chains, find themselves at
this season of the year, at liberty to enjoy the
salutary fragrance of vegetation, or to seek re-
freshment  and relief in the still more enliven-
ing breezes  and  invigorating exhalations of
the sea.  London, whicii at other times serves
as  a kind  of nucleus  for  an   accumulated
population, seems, in the latter part of sum-
                  • Armstrong. 
106
ATMOSPHERE OF LONDON.
 mer, to exert a centrifugal force, by which are
 driven to a distance from it a large  proportion
 of those inhabitants,  who are not fastened to
 the spot upon which they reside, by the rivet
 of necessity, or some powerful local obliga-
 tion.  Men, whose personal freedom is not
 restricted within geographical limits, may glad-
 ly escape in the autumnal state of  the  atmo-
 sphere,  from  the  perils,  real  or imaginary,
 of this crowded and artificially heated capital.
              Pericula mille saevac urbis.

   An already immense  and incessantly ex-
 panding city, on every  side of which  new
 streets are continually surprising the view, as
 rapid almost in their formation, as the sudden
 shootings of crystalization, it is fair to  ima-
 gine, cannot be particularly favourable to the
 health of that mass of human existence which
 it contains.  In London, when a man receives
 into his lungs a draught of air,  he cannot be
 sure that it has not been in some other  per-
 son's lungs before.   This second-hand at-
 mosphere  cannot but be injurious to health
 as the idea of it is offensive to the imagination.
But it is a matter of at least doubtful specula-
tion, how far those maladies which  are  attri-
buted exclusively to the air of this great town,
may not arise  from the more noxious influ- 
ATMOSPHERE OF LONDON.
107
ence of its fashions and its habits. As the bo-
dy varies little in its heat in all the vicissitudes
of external temperature to which it  may  be
exposed ;  so there is an internal power of re-
sistance in the mind, which, when roused into
action, is in most instances, sufficient to coun-
teract the  hostile agency of external causes.
I have been acquainted with  more than  one
instance  of a female  patient,  who,  at  the
time that she felt or fancied herself too feeble
or enervated to walk across  a  room, could,
without any sense of inconvenience or fatigue,
dance the  greater part of  the night,  with an
agreeable  partner.  So remarkably  does the
stimulus of an enlivening and favourite amuse-
ment awaken the dormant energies of the ani-
mal fibre.   Upon a similar principle, they are,
for the most part, only the vacant and the idle,
the " fillies of the valley that neither toil nor
spin," who suffer in any considerable degree
from the closeness of the air, or the altera-
tions of the weather.   One whose attention is
constantly occupied, and  whose  powers are
actively engaged, will be found to be, in a great
measure, indifferent to the elevations and de-
pressions  of the barometer.
  The gloomy month  of November has been
regarded, but perhaps with little justice, as pe-
culiarly disposing to melancholy, and the fa- 
 108     ATMOSPHERE OF LONDON.

vourite season of suicide.  The dark hues of
the mind are not in general reflected from the
sky: and the  preternaturally exalted excite-
ment of  mania, soars in general above atmo-
spheric influence.
  There are cases, indeed, in which the dis-
eased apprehensions  of an hypochondriac are
relieved or aggravated by the changes of the
weather, where, when the sun  shines, even
his mind seems to  be irradiated by its influ-
ence, and scarcely a cloud can obscure  the
face of nature, without at the same time cast-
ing a melancholy shade over his speculations. 
ESSAY XVI.
      DYSPEPTIC AND HEPATIC DISEASES.

            " We're not ourselves,
       When nature being opprest, commands the mind
       To suffer with the body."             Shakespeare.

   When  disease originates from an improper
indulgence in the more solid luxuries of the
table, it ought,  perhaps, in general, to be re-
garded as a condition of debility, occasioned
in a great measure by fatigue of the corporeal
powers. The epicure is not aware what hard
work  his stomach is obliged to undergo, in
vainly struggling  to  incorporate the chaotic
mass with  which he has  distended and op-
pressed it.  It is possible to be tired with the
labour of  digestion, as well as with any other
labour.  The fibres connected with this pro-
cess are wearied by the execution, or by the
ineffectual endeavour to execute too heavy a
task, in the same manner as the limbs are apt
to be wearied by an  extraordinary degree of
pedestrian exertion.   Gluttony is one of the
most frequent conductors to the grave. When
        15 
110   DYSPEPTIC AND HEPATIC DISEASES.

even the table may be said to groan under the
load of luxury, it  is  no wonder that the sto-
mach also should feel the burden. The poor-
er orders  of the community, fortunately for
themselves, cannot afford  to ruin their con-
stitutions by the inordinate gratification of their
appetites.   It is one of  the  unenviable privi-
leges of the comparatively wealthy, to be able
to gormandize  to   their  own  destruction.
Those who  are  not indigent, although they
may escape many other trials, have often to
undergo the severest trials of resolution.
  The appetite  is  increased  much beyond
what is natural, by the  excitement of miscel-
laneous and highly seasoned dishes, of which
we can eat more, although we can digest less,
than of plainer and less varied diet.   The list
of our viands would be sufficiently numerous,
although we were to strike all poisons out of
our bill of fare.
  The observance of fasts is a wholesome form
of superstition.  The omission of them in the
protestant calendar, was, perhaps, as it relates
to health,  an unfortunate result of the refor-
mation.  Though no  longer regarded by us
as religious institutions,  it would  be desirable
that some of them at least should still be kept
with a kind of sacred punctuality, as salutary
intervals of abstinence, which give to the sto- 
    DYSPEPTIC AND HEPATIC DISEASES.  Ill

mach a periodical holiday, and afford an occa-
sional respite from  the daily drudgery of di-
gestion.
  I recollect a case  of unsightly and unwieldy
corpulence, which appeared gradually to have
accumulated in consequence of gross feeding,
connected  with  a life of sluggish inactivity.
From an ignoble indulgence in habits of re-
pletion and repose, this  patient seemed ulti-
mately to sink under the weight of abdominal
oppression.
  I have known several instances of dyspep-
sia, which might be in part accounted  for from
the state of the teeth, which were so  decayed
as to be unequal to the due performance of
their appropriate office.  When it is consider-
ed  how  much  health and  life itself depend
upon the proper assimilation of our food; that
such an assimilation must be preceded by an
adequate digestion; and  that this  last process
cannot well be effected without a previous and
sufficient  mastication,  the functions of the
teeth will seem to approach in importance, to
that of the essential viscera. The wanton or
unnecessary extraction of a tooth, ought to be
avoided, not  on account merely  of  the mo-
mentary pain  of the operation, or of the ap-
pearance of decay and dilapidation it may give
to the face, but because it involves the loss of 
113  DYSPEPTIC AND HEPATIC DISEASES.

one of the instruments  most intimately con-
nected with the preservation of vigour, and
even with the continuance of vitality.  A cir-
cumstance which  has almost constantly been
observed to occur among the phenomena of
an extraordinary and healthy old age, is the
unimpaired integrity of  the teeth.  Their de-
cay,  which for the  most part  accompanies,
cannot fail likewise to contribute to and ac-
celerate  that progressive reduction of sub-
stance and of strength that so generally cha-
racterises the  more  advanced  stages  of our
existence.
  Hepatic disease,  although belonging more
properly to a warmer climate,  forms a large
proportion in the class even of  English mala-
dies.
  It were to be wished that the commence-
ment of mischief in an organ so important as
the liver, should invariably announce itself by
some  obtrusive  and unequivocal  symptom,
But this essential viscus has often been found
after death to be  indurated,  or  otherwise in-
jured,  without any marked indication of dis-
ease during the  life of the  patient,  except
dyspepsia, or simple indigestion. Fortunately,
however, in the greater number of cases, less
doubtful  signs of this  disorder shew them-
selves before it  is  too late to  avert its most 
    DYSPEPTIC AND HEPATIC DISEASES.  113

lamentable consequences.  A sense of heavi-
ness in the upper  part of  the  abdomen,  an
obtuse pain below  the ribs  on the right  side,
a troublesome acidity or flatulence in the first
passages,  with an uneasiness when lying on
the left side, are grounds of reasonable appre-
hension.   When a bon  vivant, who has  in-
dulged in  those habits of life, which,  in this
country at least, are observed to be by far the
most frequent exciting causes of liver  com-
plaints, begins to be conscious of these symp-
toms, no  time ought to  be lost in reforming
his regimen,  as  well as in having recourse to
the modes of recovery which are to be deri-
ved from  the  medical art.   On a close inter-
rogation of invalids  with disorganized livers,
we shall often discover that they can recollect
the exact  time since which they always found
themselves lying on the  right side, on awak-
ing in the morning. It is  probable that inward
sensations during sleep, unconsciously inclined
the patient to take this posture.  We  should,
however, be aware that an  equal ease in lying
on either side, is no demonstration of the liver
being in a sound condition.  A sallowness of
the skin, and particularly a light yellow colour
of the forehead, may be classed among the
signs of hepatic  disorganization; so may like-
wise a nain under the right shoulder blade, 
 114  DYSEPTIC AND HEPATIC DISEASES.

 and what is  particularly worthy of notice, a
 regular morning cough, followed by the ejec-
 tion of a little froth from the mouth.   The
 liver may sometimes be felt hard or enlarged.
 But there is no one, it  is to be hoped,  who
 would defer his apprehensions until they were
 forced upon him, by this palpable completion
 of evidence.
  After all, a large proportion of what are in
 general called cases of  disordered liver, may
 be more properly considered as cases of bro-
 ken-up habits or worn-out stamina.  The con-
 stitution is, perhaps, not so often  affected in
 the first instance, by a disease of the liver, as
 the liver is by the previous disease or decay
 of the constitution.  On this account jt is not
 altogether  by the remedies  which seem  to
 have a  more particular operation  upon this
 organ that  its irregularities are to be correct-
 ed, or its obstructions to be removed;  but in
 a great measure  by those other  medicines
 and methods of treatment that are calculated
to restore lost tone to the general fibre, or to
prop for a period the  tottering pillars of  the
frame.
  There are, no  doubt, articles in the  Mate-
ria Medica, which do not rank with tonics or
corroborants, that often  have a decidedly and
eminently favourable operation in hepatic dis- 
    DYSPEPTIC AND HEPATIC DISEASES.  115

orders.  Of these  the  most distinguished is
calomel.  But calomel, powerful and  benefi-
cial as it unquestionably is, when seasonably
and  discreetly administered, has sometimes,
perhaps, been extolled  with an intemperate
zeal, and appears to  have been employed  in
certain cases with too little reserve and dis-
crimination.  There  is reason to believe, that
many a patient, supposed to be hepatic, but in
fact only dyspeptic, has fallen a martyr to  a
mercurial course;  a  course which  has often
been persisted in with a perseverance undaunt-
ed by the glaring depredation which  it pro-
duced.  Mercury would  be more cautiously
administered, if sufficient attention were paid,
not only to its immediate and more apparent,
but also to its ultimate and comparatively clan-
destine  operation upon the human frame.
  In the treatment of any malady,  our object
ought to be not merely to remove it, but to
do so at as little expense as possible to the sta-
mina of the patient. In too rudely eradicating
a disease, there is danger lest we tear up a part
of the constitution along with it.  One of the
most important circumstances that distinguish
the honourable and reasoning practitioner from
the empiric, is, that the former  in his  endea-
vour  to rectify a temporary  derangement,
pays, at the same time, due regard to the per- 
116  DYSPEPTIC AND HEPATIC DISEASES.

manent interests and resources of the  consti-
tution.
  The inebriate, who, from having hardened
or mutilated his hepatic organs, or one who,
from having mangled his health by a different
mode of indiscretion, has recourse  to the re-
medial influence  of mercury,  ought to be
aware that a poison may lurk under the me-
dicine, which apparently  promotes his cure;
that although it prove ultimately successful in
expelling the enemy, it often, during the con-
flict, lays waste the ground upon which it ex-
ercises its victorious power. 
ESSAY XVII.
  PALSY, IDIOCY, SPASMODIC AND CONVULSIVE
                AFFECTIONS.

   In the formidable family of diseases, there is
no individual more to be dreaded than palsy,
unless, indeed, it extend its influence  to  the
faculties of intellect, as well as to those of
muscular exertion.  Idiocy is a mournful ob-
ject of contemplation.  But the second child-
hood of the mind is less to be pitied than that
of the body, when, in the latter case, the facul-
ties of memory and reflection remain compa-
ratively unimpaired.
   I remember a young man,  who, in  conse-
quence of having caught cold  during a me-
dicinal course, to which he had frequently be-
fore been under  the  necessity of submitting,
was attacked with a palsy of the left side,
which soon became apparently universal,  ex-
cept in the muscles about the neck and face.
He presented the spectacle of  a living head
moving upon a motionless and apparently  de-
      16 
118
PALSY, IDIOCY, SjC.
ceased trunk.  Death  soon,  however, com-
pleted its task ; and liberated the sufferer from
the horrors of consciousness.
  More than one instance of paralysis, which
I have met with, has seemed to  consist in a
gradual mouldering away of the constitution.
The warm bath, which often proves one of
the most efficacious cordials for decayed ener-
gies, was, in these cases, only of fugitive ad-
vantage.  It may not be unworthy of remark,
that in instances of advanced palsy, or even
natural decline Df strength, the immediate pre-
liminary to, and proximate cause of, death, is
very frequently an obstruction or an irrepar-
able debility of the urinary organs, which does
not, for the most part, originate  so much from
any local injury or  partial disorganization, as
from the general feebleness or impaired pow-
ers of the frame.
  The application of blisters, which, in a state
of torpor, or morbid sleep of the faculties, is
so well calculated to rouse them into activity,
is seldom of much avail,  and often is posi-
tively injurious in cases of radical exhaustion
or  slowly-induced decay.  The troublesome
effect, however, which, under such circum-
stances, they are particularly apt to produce
upon the urinary organs, may be obviated, or
prevented from leading at least to any serious 
           PALSY, IDIOCY, C^C          119

consequence, by methods of relief which are
of obvious and easy application.
  Intemperance is among the most frequent
causes of paralysis: but it is not always an in-
temperance in the use of intoxicating liquors,
but sometimes in business requiring anxious and
unseasonable exertions.  One instance of para-
lysis I have known, in which the subject of the
attack had through life been remarkably abste-
mious in his regimen;  but had stretched and
strained his faculties by a praise-worthy  effort
to secure to himself and his family the reason-
able comforts of life, and a respectable inde-
pendence.  Labour is the lot of man, and per-
haps his  most genuine and lasting luxury. But
although no ordinary error,  it is  possible  to
be  industrious  over-much.   We  may some-
times over-work the machine, although more
frequently we  allow  its springs  to rust for
want  of sufficient use.   The  patient above re-
ferred to, observed, that " it was very strange
a man should be so ill, and not know it." The
doctors whom he saw, and the medicines that
he  took, were to him  almost the only indica-
tions  of his labouring  under disease. But this
is by  no means uncommon in paralytic  affec-
tions, more especially  when they extend their
influence to the intellectual powers.   The
muscles of a man's face may be distorted  by 
ISO
PALSY, IDIOCY, £50.
this malady without his being aware of it, un-
less  he be made  so  by the testimony of a
friend, or the accidental reflection of a mirror.
Unfortunately, or perhaps happily, there is in
such cases no mirror for the mind; and as
for a friend, we are seldom willing to acknow-
ledge a man as such,  who endeavours to con-
vince us of our mental decline.  The Bishop
of Grenada, in Gil Bias, is a well drawn copy
of a multitude of originals, which are conti-
nually occurring in actual life. Pride consoles
us for the failure  of  reason: and in propor-
tion  as we forfeit our title to the respect of
others, we are often apt to acquire  an addi-
tional reverence for ourselves.   A once-cele-
brated beauty,  sees but too  distinctly the re-
flection of her faded charms.  But a man, the
flower of whose genius is withered, for the
most part remains ignorant of the melancholy
alteration.  The  dim eye of dotage  cannot
discern its own decay.   Hence  arises the re-
luctance which men often shew to resign sta-
tions  in society, to the duties of which  they
have  long ceased to be equal.   Next to the
glory arising from a  course of illustrious and
profitable activity, is the dignity and the grace
 of a seasonable and voluntary retirement.
   To the man of genius more especially, pa-
 ralysis teaches  an edifying lesson of humili- 
PALSY, IDIOCY, #JC.
121
ation.   It is that unjustly envied class of men,
which is omst  conspicuously  open to its at-
tacks. A dazzling display of intellect menaces
its premature extinction.   Of a life signalized
by mental  exercise  and splendor,  palsy too
frequently marks the melancholy conclusion.
Marlborough, in his last years a victim  to this
dreadful malady,  observed, to one admiring
his portrait, " Yes ; that was a great man ;"
such a remnant at least of understanding was
still preserved  as enabled him to recollect the
brilliancy of his former career.  How differ-
ent are  the feelings  which are excited by be-
holding the ruins of a superannuated mind,
from those with which we contemplate a di-
lapidated specimen  of ancient architecture,
more especially if the latter has been associa-
ted in our recollections, with examples of for-
mer heroism or  devotion.  The remaining
fragments of a decayed abbey or  a time-worn
castle, strike us as venerable or sublime. But
who ever heard of a venerable idiocy, or a
sublime paralysis ?
   In an inveterate case of idiocy or of para-
lysis, affecting  more particularly the intellect,
which once came under my observation, I was
particular in my enquiries  with regard to the
habits of living, professional employment, and 
122
PALSY, IDIOCY, ^C.
former character of the patient.  I found that
he was originally a man of more than ordinary
acuteness and capacity for business ;  that  he
had been always abstemious in his diet; and
had spent the greatest part of his life in an of-
ficial situation, which required no unseasona-
ble or unwholesome degree of labour, or any
extraordinary anxiety or perturbation of mind.
The mental imbecility seemed in this instance
not to originate from any of its usual or na-
tural sources.  Upon  further scrutiny, how-
ever, it came out  that the patient had, for a
considerable period, been in the habit of taking
" patent drops," which produced a gradually
progressive weakness, and ultimately  an en-
tire destruction of the intellectual and  active
powers.
  About two years ago,  I met with a remark-
able  case,  which strikingly exemplified the
connection and affinity that may exist between
what are called " bilious affections" and those
which belong more apparently and decidedly
to the nervous system.  The patient referred
to, had, in consequence of a severe domestic
privation, been  seduced  into habits of intem-
perance, which, for two years, seemed to have
no effect but upon the liver, producing at near-
ly regular intervals of ten days, vomitings  of
bile, occasionally accompanied by a diarrhsea, 
            PALSY, ID0CY, ^C         123

which, when  combined with  the  former, of
course assimilated the disease to the character
of cholera. For the considerable period above-
mentioned, his only apparent  complaint  was
what, in popular and fashionable language,  is
called the " bile."   After the lapse, however,
of somewhat  more than two years from the
commencement  of his  intemperate  habits,
without having  received  any precautionary
or prefatory intimation, he was surprized by a
seizure which paralized one half of his body,
dividing it longitudinally into  two  equal  sec-
tions, the one dead to all the purposes of sen-
sation or voluntary motion, the  other retain-
ing the functions and privileges of vitality, al-
though in some measure, of course,  clogged
and impeded by the impotent and deceased
half to which it was united.  When I saw him
last, he had remained three years  in this truly
melancholy state.   At least, during that time,
he  had experienced no important or perma-
nent amelioration, nor any evident tendency
towards the recovery of his corporeal powers.
His mind also seemed to have shared in the
paralysis.  This was more particularly  obvi-
ous in the lapses  of his  recollection.   His
memory had been maimed by the same  blow
which had disabled one side of his body. His
recollection with regard to things, did not seem 
124
PALSY, IDIOCY,  #JC.
 to be much impaired: but it was surprisingly
 so with regard to the denominations of per-
 sons or places.   He  has often forgotten  the
 name of an intimate friend, at the very time
 that, with the most unaffected cordiality, he
 was shaking hands with him.   Upon enquiry,
 it appeared that  the  pernicious habits  of  the
 patient were still persisted in ; a circumstance
 which,  alone, was sufficient to account for the
 uninterrupted continuance of his disorder.
   In this case, nothing could be more evident
 than that the bilious symptoms with which he
 was first affected, and the nervous complaints
 which  succeeded, .both originated  from one
 source: and this may give a hint to those who
 are much troubled with the bile, as it is called,
 especially when  it has been occasioned  by
 the same means as in the instance just  stated,
 that unless they  seasonably reform their regi-
 men, they may be at  no great distance from a
 paralytic seizure.
   I recollect another case  of palsy, which was
 rather remarkable, both from  some of the
 symptoms which attended it, and  from the
 manner in which the patient was  restored.
 This person was perfectly  sensible  of  every
 circumstance of the attack.   He felt as  if the
ground  were sinking from under his feet, and
 all the objects before  him  appeared to him 
PALSY, IDIOCY,  #JC
125
inverted.  He suddenly became incapable of
moving any limb or part of his body, while, at
the same time, his recollection and other fac-
ulties of mind, were not, in any sensible de-
gree, impaired.  Instead of bleeding,  or any
other violent method of depletion being had
recourse to, stimulants, both externally and in-
ternally, were administered.   The patient was
thus gradually aroused, and  a  resuscitation
took place of those powers, which might per-
haps have been irrecoverably extinguished by
an ill-timed expenditure of the vital fluid.
  Palsy, although  often apparently sudden in
its attacks, is, for the  most part, a disease of
gradual, and sometimes of clandestine growth.
The circumstances, at least, which indicate the
embryo existence  of  this  malady in the con-
stitution, are seldom understood, or sufficient-
ly attended  to.  In the premature diminution
of the  capacity  for either bodily  or  mental
exertions, there may, in many cases, be a well-
founded fear of  ultimate paralysis, unless the
tendency to it be in due time  counteracted by
the  administration of appropriate remedies,
or the relinquishment of pernicious habits. A
decline of energy is often to be regarded as a
commencement of palsy.  But besides the
general failure of the most important  powers
of life, there are  many more particular cir-
        17 
126         PALSY, IDIOCY, fljC.

cumstances  which indicate the  approach, if
not the actual  inroad  of this formidable dis-
ease :  such as, transitory torpor of some limb
or muscle ; dark spots floating or fixed before
the eye;  an occasional  dimness of discern-
ment ; an indistinctness or confusion of me-
mory.   Fearful feelings  are frequently ex-
perienced, such as deep-seated pains in the
back part  of the head, which give an idea of
pressure,  or of the firm  and violent grasp of
an iron hand; these symptoms are often at-
tended by a  singing in the ears,  an awkward
difficulty  of motion or articulation, a  dimi-
nished acuteness, although, in some rare cases,
it is increased, in  several or all of the senses.
What is  particularly remarkable, and  by no
means unfrequent before a fatal seizure,  a
numbness of one side  will be felt occasionally
for a little  time, and then pass away.  Dr.
Beddoes speaks of a person, who once feel-
ing in this manner whilst a tailor was employ-
ed about his  person, remarked that " he should
probably never want the suit of cloaths;  as he
distinctly  felt Death taking measure of him
for his shroud."  This man afterwards died
suddenly of palsy.
   An acquaintance not  merely with the ac-
tual symptoms of a disorder, but with the pre-
vious  history also of the patient,  is highly 
            PALSY, IDIOCY, #JC.         ±27

interesting and instructive.  The latter know-
ledge is often as necessary to the prevention,
as the former is to the cure, of a disease.  It
is of importance to  know, and to interpret
rightly,  those  signs  which portend the  ap-
proach  of any formidable  malady, in order
that our fear  may be  aroused in time, and
that we  may seasonably oppose to the mor-
bid tendency, all the means of precaution and
counteraction in our power.  In some of the
complaints which fall  under the denomina-
tion of nervous, this is more particularly re-
quired.
  Many  of the  symptoms which indicate a
tendency to epilepsy, are the same as those
by  which palsy is preceded.   But there  are
some which more particularly threaten  the
occurrence of  the former disease. Upon mi-
nute enquiry of  an  epileptic  patient,  it will
often appear that several  years before  the
complete formation of an epileptic paroxysm,
he had been liable to a drowsiness, which was
not removed by actual  sleep; to a frequently
occurring sense of intoxication, without hav-
ing taken any inebriating draught or drug; to
an almost habitual unsteadiness upon the feet,
and sometimes an absolute staggering; to an
incessant restlessness and propensity to loco-
motion,  and a continual disposition to change 
128
PALSY, IDIOCY, ^C.
his posture, or his place.   This mobility ex-
tends likewise to the mind of the  patient, so
that a permanent direction of it towards one
object, is an effort beyond his power.   The
attention is always  on the wing.   Not  long
before an actual paroxysm of epilepsy, a va-
riety of uncomfortable feelings occur, such as
flashes  of light before the eyes,  head-ache,
violent rushings, as it would seem, of the blood
towards  the head, dizziness, dimness and con-
fusion of vision, and a frequent sense of faint-
ness, approaching to syncope.  The patient
often complains  also, whilst the  malady is
pending,  of being subject  to transient deser-
tions of the intellectual faculty, which seems
to leave  him for a few minutes,  and then to
return in a  manner that  he cannot account
for.
   It is but seldom that we meet with a person
whose previous life  affords all these admoni-
tory hints of the kind of danger which may
threaten his constitution: although  it is  per-
haps for want of a scrutiny sufficiently strict,
that we do not  ascertain, in almost every in-
stance of true  epilepsy, the  previous occur-
rence of most at least of these circumstances
of awful presage.  Happy  are they, who, in
such cases, have discernment  enough to decy-
pher, and resolution practically to apply the 
PALSY, IDIOCY, £$C.
129
 characters of menace, before it is too late to
 avert the evil which they forebode.
   When the early intimations of the progress
 either of approaching epilepsy  or  paralysis
 are not adverted to, and the tendency of the
 disease towards further encroachment is not,
 by a correction of diet, and general regulation
 of the passions and habits, carefully and vigor-
 ously resisted, the destiny of the unhappy pa-
 tient is  likely,  in no  long time,  to be irre-
 trievably fixed by one decisive blow,  which,
 if it spare for a season,  the principle of life,
 will blast at once, and obscure for ever, all the
 energies and capacities of intellect.  The pa-
 ralytic survivor of his reason, presents an ob-
ject truly pitiable and humiliating; an unbu-
 ried and respiring corpse, a  soul-less  image,
 a mockery of man! All is fled that was valua-
 ble in the interior: it is only the shell that re-
 mains. The empty casket serves merely as a
 memento of the jewel  which it once con-
 tained.
   DuHng the year 1809,1 met with two cases
 of disease arising from personal imprudence
 of a similar nature, but producing effects, in
 some respects different, upon the constitution.
  One of them was an instance of fatuity, or
 extreme imbecility which had been gradually
 induced by a succession of epileptic paroxyms, 
130         PALSY, IDIOCY, £$C.

each of which took something away, until the
mind was stripped altogether  of its powers
and endowments.  At length, it presented a
tablet from which was  effaced  nearly every
impression of thought,  or character of intel-
lectual existence.
  The other case was that of a  young man,
who, from an  indiscreet  exposure  during a
medicinal course, was  suddenly seized  with
delirium, which, on  account of an hereditary
bias in that direction, seemed likely to degen-
erate into  a  chronic, and  perhaps cureless
aberration, instead of abolition of the mental
powers. The mind, in the latter instance, shat-
tered by disease, may be  compared to the
small fragments of a broken mirror, which re-
tain the faculty of reflection, but in which, al-
though the number of images is  increased,
there is no one entire and  perfect represen-
tation.
  I have known an instance of epilepsy,  in
which  the disease seemed to have been at first
occasioned by  blows upon the head which a
boy had received from his schoolmaster, and
also  from  the hand of an unnatural parent.
He had for some time previous to my seeing
him, been in the  habit, as a baker's servant,
of carrying to great distances heavy loads  of
bread,  the pressure of which upon  his  head, 
             PALSY, IDIOCY, 6jC.          131

was calculated to aggravate the disposition to
his original disorder.   After, he had  in con-
sequence of professional advice, been induced
to relinquish this to him peculiarly unsuitable
occupation, the fits occurred more rarely, and
assumed a less alarming appearance.
   It is not always easy to mark the distinction
between different kinds of fits; hysteria, epilep-
sy, palsy, and apoplexy exhibit often strong fea-
tures  of consanguinity, and in practice  are sel-
dom, indeed, seen so distinct from each other,
as in the definitions of nosology.   Some years
ago, I heard  of an impressive instance of the
fatality of impetuous passion.  A farmer was
intemperately indignant against  a tenant, for
some  alteration which he had made in one of
his houses ;  and in the crisis of his anger fell
instantly dead at the  feet of his innocent of-
fender.   The violence of his emotion ex-
hausted the  powers of vitality without the in-
tervention of disease.   The  moment before
the sudden rising of his rage,  he was in the
most perfect health, and had been so for a long
time previous to it.   Although  at already an
advanced age, his mode of living, and modera-
tion in every thing but temper, had promised
still a considerable protraction of comfortable
life.  Armstrong had  such a case as  is here 
132          PALSY, IDIOCY, ^C.

related in his view, in the following descrip-
tion :
    " But he, whom anger stings, drops, if he dies
    " At once, and rushes apoplectic down."*

It may be doubted, however, whether this fa-
tal attack may be correctly considered as apo-
plectic ;  although that epithet is,  in general,
but certainly with too little discrimination, ap-
plied to almost every  case of sudden death,
which has  not been obviously  occasioned by
external violence.
  The physical injury arising from inordinate
passion, separate from any mischievous act to
which it  may lead, has not been sufficiently
the subject of medical attention.  It operates
upon the vital functions in a  state of health,
so as to produce disturbance and disease; and,
in a state of actual disease, it has an  alarm-
ing tendency to aggravate  every symptom of
disorder, and to increase the risk of a  fatal
termination.   Anger,  when it  is not  imme-
diately dangerous, is at least unwholesome. It
is painful, without any compensation of plea-
sure.  A man must be altogether unwise, who
would sacrifice his health to his enmity, and
really injure  himself,  because  he conceives
that he has been injured by another.
* Art of Preserving Health 
             PALSY, IDIOCY, ^C.         133

   Bath is a favourite place of refuge for the
paralytic, whether made so by debauchery t)r
any other cause of premature  decay. But the
fashionable springs of that crowded mart  of
health are not impregnated with the power  of
restoring lost energies, or of bringing back
the tide of  ebbing animation.  The late Dr.
Heberden, a physician eminent for the large-
ness of his experience and the correctness  of
his observations, remarks, that " These waters
are neither in any way detrimental, nor of the
least use, in palsy."
   My  experience with  regard to  the trial  of
the electric fluid in paralytic  seizures arising
from  radical debility or decay, has in  no in-
stance proved favourable to its use. Although
it may have the effect of awakening dormant
sensation for a  moment, it is  not likely that
the sudden operation of so fugitive an agent
should produce any important or permanent
impression upon a chronic  and constitutional
disorder.  Electricity is of well-ascertained
advantage in some diseases, where the cure
is, in many instances,  to be effected only by a
violent agitation or movement of the general
system : but, with regard to those morbid af-
fections, or, to  speak  more correctly,  those
predispositions to morbid affection, which are
either implanted before our birth, or have by
      18 
134         PALSY, IDIOCY, 2$C

the influence of exterior situation, or inveter-
ate habits, been gradually introduced into our
frame, in addition to a vigilant and unceasing
care to avoid any  circumstances which  may
rouse the sleeping propensity to disease, little
else  is to be prescribed  than to adopt that re-
gimen and method of life, and occasionally the
use of those pharmaceutical remedies  which
are calculated to preserve or restore the gene-
ral health, and by a  slow and almost imper-
ceptible influence, to give additional  vigor to
the stamina of the constitution.
   In the treatment of disease, it must appear
desirable to effect the cure, when it is practi-
cable, by means which  act generally and im-
partially upon the body, rather than by those
which operate, although not solely, yet more
immediately,  and with peculiar force, upon
the  delicate nerves and fibres of the stomach.
The health, and  of course  comfort of man,
depend in a principal degree,  upon the  due
vigour of his powers of digestion, which, by
the  inordinate or unnecessary use of drugs,
has  in too many instances  been gradually im-
paired, and at length irrecoverably destroyed.
This is apt to be the  case  more especially
with those fashionable hypochondriacs,  who
are continually having recourse to the doses of
pharmacy, in order  to relieve the ennui of in- 
              PALSY, IDIOCY, 8jC         135

 dolence, or to support the languor of an ef-
 feminate or enervated constitution.   Such an
 existence as  theirs may, out of courtesy, be
 called life: but it possesses none of life's pri-
 vileges or its blessings.
   Before concluding the present essay, it may
 be worth while to notice  several additional
 cases of nervous or spasmodic disorder, which
 are somewhat remarkable, and capable, per-
 haps, of useful application.
   A case of  chorea once fell under my care,
 in a  girl of  nine  years of age.  Her limbs,
 during the time that she was awake, were in
 constant motion.   So far from being able to
 stand still, she was scarcely able to stand at
 all.   Every muscle of her face was strangely
 distorted, and  her countenance wore an ex-
pression of singular horror.  She frequently
 threw herself upon the floor, and  beat her
 head  violently  against it, the effects of which
 were  visible in the scars and contusions that
 remained.  She would, in some of her parox-
 ysms, thrust needles into the flesh of her arms,
without appearing  to  receive pain from the
wounds thus inflicted.  She was in the  habit
of grasping, with an uncommon degree of ea-
gerness and tenacity, any object which  might
happen to be within  her  reach.   All  these
symptoms,  when  regarded in  combination. 
136         PALSY, IDIOCY, £$C.
seemed to indicate a superabundance of sen-
sorial power,  which continually required to
expend itself in muscular motion and volun-
tary exertion.   It is many years since I heard
of this patient; but it is not improbable that
the reduction of excitability, which gradually
takes place as  life  advances, might  at length
have  restored  her to  that state of health,
which no remedies were likely, at the time I
knew her, completely and permanently to  ef-
fect.
  Dr. Parry observes,  that " The mere sight
of certain colours  and liquids, slight noises,
and various other trifling irritations, are highly
distressing, and even  productive of convul-
sions.   These circumstances are very com-
mon concomitants of high degrees of what is
called nervous affection.  A  lady   whom I
knew, could not bear to look at any thing of a
scarlet  colour; another could bear the sight
of no light colour whatever; in consequence
of which the papers and wainscot of her rooms
were all tinged with a deep blue or green; and
the light was modified by green blinds. If also
at any time I visited her in white stockings, I
was always at my entrance presented with a
black silk apron, with which I  was requested
to cover these offensive garments.   I have
seen  a third patient of this description,  re- 
             PALSY, IDIOCY, ^C.         137

peatedly thrown into  violent convulsions by
the noise produced by the falling of a pill-box,
or even a black pin, on the floor."*
  The source of convulsive affections for the
most part consists in  a morbid excess of irri-
tability. Every nerve, in many of these cases,
seems to have the exquisite sensibility of the
optic.  I have repeatedly been called  upon
to prescribe for one lady who belongs to this
class of patients.   She is subject to attacks  of
convulsion, accompanied with the most ex-
cruciating pain at the  top of her head. These
symptoms were the  other  day  suddenly in-
duced, by the servant letting fall the tea-board
at the  door of her chamber.  She felt  as  if
the brittle load had fallen upon her head. Her
brain appeared to sympathize with  the frac-
"ture of the porcelain.  This person had re-
cently undergone the pains of child-birth, with-
out  experiencing any injury, or a more  than
usual shock  to her  feelings.   Such invalids
are  often operated upon most powerfully  by
the  most feeble  causes;  serious sufferings
they can bear with fortitude and composure.
It is only trifles that overcome them.
   A very singular and anomalous case of ner-
vous affection I shall  narrate in the  words  in
• See " Cases of Tetanus and Rabies Contagiosa," by Dr. Parry, of Rath. 
 138          PALSY,  IDIOCY, IjC.

 which it was described  by me many years
 ago,  when I was Physician to the  Finsbury
 Dispensary.
   " A  case  equally  remarkable and  melan-
 choly, has remained for a very long  period
 under the care of the dispensary.  It is that
 of a young woman, who, for many years past,
 has been  confined to her  bed in a state of
 nearly universal spasm.  She  lies rigid and
 motionless,  with her  eyes  more than half
 closed, and  every other organ  of sense al-
 most completely shut against external impres-
 sion.  The physician  who  attended her, by
 speaking in  her ear as loud as it was possi-
 ble for him to do, succeeded only so far as to
 produce a motion of the lips, that betrayed an
 ineffectual endeavour for utterance.  It seems
 to be a case  in which there is an absence of
 actual sensation, although by some violently
 exciting cause, the sensibility may, at  times,
 be  imperfectly awakened.  Lying in such a
 state, with scarce any symptom of vitality, but
 a feeble  respiration,  she  can be regarded as
 little more than a breathing corpse.  It is pos-
 sible that in this case, consciousness may still
 exist, although it be unable to appear, in con-
sequence  of the voluntary  muscles usually
employed to  express it, refusing in the pre-
sent instance  to  discharge their accustomed 
            PALSY, IDIOCY, $C          139

office.  It is to be hoped,  however,  that this
is not actually the fact.  Nothing is more ter-
rific to the imagination than the idea of being
buried alive: and what mode of being buried
alive, can  be conceived more truly horrible,
than  for the soul to be entombed in the bo-
dy ?"*

  * Se<.- Monthly Magazine, Alcdical Report, for June, 1800. 
 
ESSAY XVIII.
    THE HEREDITARY NATURE OF MADNESS.

  " To be well born," is a circumstance of
real importance, but not in the sense in which
that  expression is usually employed.   The
most  substantial privileges of birth are not
those which are confined to the descendants
of noble ancestors.
  The heir of a sound  constitution has no
right to regret the absence of any other patri-
mony. A man who has derived from the im-
mediate authors of his being, vigorous and
untainted stamina of mind as well as of body,
enters upon the world with a sufficient foun-
dation and  ample materials for  happiness.
Very different is it with the progeny of those
who are constitutionally diseased in any way,
but more especially with the progeny of per-
sons who are radically morbid in intellect. No
wealth,  which it is in the power of such pa-
rents to bequeath, can compensate the proba-
bility of evil which they entail upon the crea-
         19 
142       MADNESS HEREDITARY.
tures and the victims  of their selfish indul-
gence or their criminal indiscretion.
  Nothing can be more obvious, than that one
who is aware of a decided bias  in his own
person towards mental derangement, ought
to shun the chance of  extending and of per-
petuating, without any assignable limit, the
ravages of so dreadful a calamity.   No rites,
however holy, can, under such circumstances,
consecrate the conjugal union.  In a case like
this, marriage itself is a transgression of mo-
rality. A man who is so situated, in incurring
the risk of becoming a parent, involves  him-
self in a crime, which may not improbably
project its lengthened shadow, a shadow too,
which widens in proportion  as it advances,
over the intellect and the happiness of an in-
definite succession of beings.
  The ruffian  who fires at the intended ob-
ject of his plunder, takes away the life of him
only at whom his aim is levelled. The bullet
which penetrates the heart of the unfortunate
victim, does  in general no farther mischief.
But he, who  inflicts upon a single individual,
the  worse than deadly wound  of insanity,
knows not the numbers to which  its venom
may be communicated.  He poisons a public
stream out of  which multitudes may drink. 
          MADNESS HEREDITARY.        143

he is the enemy, not of one man, but of man-
kind.
  In cases of disease which are more strictly
corporeal, the risk as  well as evil of engen-
dering them is smaller, not only because they
are less serious in their character and conse-
quences than mental  maladies, but also, be-
cause they are more within the scope of ma-
nagement and possible counteraction.
  Scrophula, for instance, although by the vul-
gar it has been emphatically denominated " the
Evil,"  is  less deserving of so fearful a title,
than that complaint,  which, not  altogether
without reason, has received the appellation
of the " English Malady.';   It should likewise
be considered, that scrophula might, perhaps,
in a majority of  instances,  be corrected in
early life, by a suitable education of the mus-
cular fibre,  upon  the  chronic relaxation of
which, affections of this nature  may be sup-
posed, in a great measure, to depend.   Gout,
likewise, may be  considered as an hereditary
complaint.  But by temperance, exercise, and
other means which are completely within our
power,  we  may avert an  impending attack,
and even counteract, in some measure, if not
altogether extirpate, an original tendency to
this disease.  But an hereditary propensity to
inflammation and consequent distortion of the 
 144       MADNESS HEREDITATRY.

 mental faculties, will  not yield, with  equal
 readiness and certainty, to any skill in  medi-
 cine, or discretion in diet.   We may shun or
 protect ourselves against those vicissitudes of
 external temperature which develope the se-
 cret tendency to pulmonary complaints.  But,
 we cannot with similar facility or success, at-
 tempt to elude the noxious influence of those
 vicissitudes  of life, which are apt to awaken
 the dormant energies of madness. There are
 crushes of calamity which at once overwhelm,
 with  an irresistible  force, the sturdiest and
 most firmly  established intellect.  Such, how-
 ever, are  comparatively of  rare  occurrence.
 But who can uniformly escape those abrupt
 interruptions, or sudden turnings of fortune,
 by which  a reason that is loosely seated may
 be suddenly displaced; or those lighter blows
 of affliction which are sufficient to overpower
 the feebleness of a tottering understanding ?
  When, as it sometimes happens, an heredi-
 tary disposition to this disease appears to sleep
 through one generation, it will often be found
 to awaken in the next, with even aggravated
 horrors.  Should the child of a maniac escape
 his father's malady, the chance is small that
the grand-child will be equally fortunate. The
continued stream of insanity, although  it oc-
casionally conceal itself for a time, soon  again 
MADNESS HEREDITARY.        145
emerges to our view.   Madness, like the elec-
tric  fluid, runs  through the whole length of
the chain, although we may not observe  it at
every link.
  After all, I would be understood to inculcate,
that strictly speaking, it is the tendency only to
insanity that is inherited; or, in other words, a
greater facility than ordinary, to be acted up-
on  by those external circumstances that  are
calculated to produce the disease.
  It might not, perhaps, transgress the exact-
ness of truth  to assert, that the external cir-
cumstances and accidents of a man's life, and,
what is more important, his physical and mo-
ral habits are calculated to have a greater effi-
cacy than any seeds of disorder that may lie
concealed in his original organization.   That
therefore one who,  under  a fear of radical
predisposition,  should,  from  early  youth,
adopt a counteracting  regimen, as it relates
both to the body and  the mind, would often
be in less danger of being affected by intellec-
tual malady,  than  another,  who, confiding in
a constitutional immunity from this form of
disease, should continually and  carelessly ex-
pose himself to its predisposing and exciting
causes. 
 
ESSAY XIX.
                ON OLD AGE.

  Cornaro, in his celebrated little treatise on
health and long life, introduces one of his pa-
ragraphs with this absurdity: " since nothing
is more advantageous to man upon earth, than
to live long."
  By a person of an unimpaired reason, longe-
vity can never be regarded as an object of am-
bition or desire.  The wick of life  emits, in
proportion as it lengthens, a more dim and
languid flame.   Man, in completing the orbit
of his terrestrial existence, returns to that
point of imbecility from which he originally
set  out.  But, between his first and second
childhood, there is a difference no less impor-
tant, than between the morning and the even-
ing twilight.   The equivocal obscurity of the
former, it is not unreasonable to hope, may be
succeeded by  a clear and even a brilliant day.
But of the latter, the faint and imperfect sha-
dows must be  expected  to grow gradually 
148
OLD AGE.
  deeper and larger, until they are lost in the
  complete darkness of night.
    During the periods of youth and maturity,
  a man has a regular revenue of health and vi-
  gour, which  he is at liberty to consume with-
  out  infringing  upon the capital of his consti-
  tution.  But in old age he is reduced to the ne-
  cessity of living upon his principal; in conse-
  quence, every day his stock of vitality grows
  sensibly loss. His power of resistance against
  the agents of further decay, diminishes in pro-
  portion to the degree of decay which has al-
'  ready taken place. The pressure of years often
  seems to produce a curvature even of the un-
  derstanding,  which, when  it  has been  bent
 from this  cause,  cannot, any more than the
 body, restore itself to the upright attitude.
   An old man is no longer susceptible of new
 ideas. His mind lives altogether upon the past.
 Hence,  in a  great  measure,  arises  the  ex-
 treme difficulty, amounting, in many instances,
 to an impossibility, of removing mental mala-
 dy when it occurs at a very advanced period
 of life.   In the instance of an aged melancho-
 lic,  we  might  as well  almost  attempt to
 change  the complexion of  his grey hairs, as
 to brighten the  dark hues of his imagination.
 Grief hangs loosely about early youth:  but, in
 more advanced  life, it often adheres so close- 
                OLD  AGE.             149

ly as to become almost a part of the moral or-
ganization. In the one case, sorrow resembles
the dress of civilized life, which is laid aside
without much difficulty; in the other, it may
be compared to the  scars with which savage
nations are  used  to adorn themselves, and
which are so deeply engraven in the substance
of the body, as to defy any attempt at oblite-
ration.  A radical cure has scarcely ever been
effected, in the instance of  a hoary-headed
maniac.  His  mind, when shattered,  is like
broken porcelain, the  fragments of which
may be so  carefully put together, as to give it
the appearance of being entire ; but which is
in danger of falling to pieces again upon the
slightest touch, or upon even a more, than or*
dinary  vibration  of the  surrounding atmos-
phere.  The disorder of the faculties, in such
a case, is not likely to terminate except  in
their complete  extinction.   The agitation  of
mind can be expected to subside only in the
calm of death, or in the inoffensive quiet  of
idiocy or idea-less superannuation.


    ARTIFICIAL OR  PREMATURE  OLD AGE.

   There are few men that can be strictly said
to die  a natural death.  And there are fewer
      20 
150
OLD  AGE.
still that allow themselves to live to a natural
old age.  An unseasonable senility grows out
of the hot bed  of juvenile  licentiousness.
Spendthrifts of constitution, by an inconsider-
ate waste of their hereditary fund  of vitality,
bring upon themselves an early  incompeten-
cy and want  of healthy  relish for the  plea-
sures as wTell as for the business of the world.
It is thus that man decays before he has had
time to ripen. The foundation is undermined,
before the  superstructure is nearly finished.
The helplessness of childhood is, by means of
excesses, brought almost into contact with the
imbecility of age ; so as to leave scarcely any
interval for that period of manly maturity, that
combination of intellectual with physical vigour,
which principally constitutes the  value, and
alone exhibits the dignity  of  human nature.
In such an existence there is no noon.   The
sun of life, instead of completing the convex-
ity of its course,  soon after the  first  shew of
its light,  relapses  beneath the verge of the
horizon.
   Veterans in vice often appear to become
virtuous, in consequence of having lost the ca-
pacity for licentious indulgence. On the other
hand, it not unfrequently happens, that, " when
the bodily organs have lost their freshness, the
imagination its radiant hues, and  the nerves 
                OLD AGE.              151

their once exquisite  faculty of thrilling with
delight through all their filaments ;"  the dull
debauchee, the vapid voluptuary, still persists,
from  the inveteracy of custom,  in a course
which he has long ceased to pursue from the
impetuosity of instinct. Habits are more invin-
cible than passions.   Nothing can be  more
truly wretched as well as contemptible, than
a state  in which  impotency is  still instigated
by the torment of desire, and where, although
the fire of masculine emotion be extinct, even
the ashes of the constitution continue to glow
with unhallowed  and ineffectual heat. 
 
ESSAY XX.
             LUNATIC ASYLUMS.


  " I am not mad!  I have been imprisoned for mad—scourged for mad
—banished for mad:—but mad I am not."        Guy Mannering.

   The mind of a man maybe bruised or broken
as well as any limb of his body :   and the in-
jury, when it occurs,  is not so easy of repara-
tion.   A morbidly tumid fancy  cannot, like
many other  swellings, be made  speedily to
subside.  An intellect out of joint will not al-
low of being  set with  the same facility as a
dislocated bone : nor can the deep and often
hidden ulcerations which arise from mental
distemper or disorganization, be  healed with
the same readinesss or certainty as those more
palpable sores which take place on  the sur-
face of the body.  On this account it is, that
so close and  vigilant an observation is required
in watching the  incessantly varying move- 
154
LUNATIC ASYLUMS.
ments, and in  inspecting the too exquisitely
delicate texture of a disordered and highly-
wrought imagination.
   One thing at least  is  certain,  that,  in the
management of such  maladies, tenderness is
better than torture,  kindness more effectual
than  constraint.   Blows,  and  the straight-
waistcoat,  are  often, it is to be feared, too
hastily  employed.   It takes  less trouble to
fetter by means of cords, than by the assidui-
ties of sympathy  or  affection.  Nothing has
a more favourable and controuling influence
over one who is disposed to, or actually af-
fected with, melancholy, or  mania, than an
exhibition  of friendship or philanthropy; ex-
cepting indeed in such cases, and in that  state
of the disease,  in  which the  mind has  been
hardened and almost brutalized, by having al-
ready been the subject of coarse  and humilia-
ting treatment.  Where  a constitutional incli-
nation towards insanity exists, there is in gen-
eral to be observed a more than ordinary sus-
ceptibility of resentment  at any act that offers
itself in the shape of an injury or an insult.
  Hence it will not appear surprising, that as
soon as an unfortunate  victim has been en-
closed within the awful barriers of either the
public, or  the minor and  more  clandestine 
            LUNATIC ASYLUMS.         155

Bethlems, the destiny of his  reason  should,
in a large proportion of cases, be irretrieva-
bly fixed.  The idea that he is supposed to be
insane, is almost of itself  sufficient to make
him so:  and when such a mode of manage-
ment is used with men, as ought not to be, al-
though it too  generally is, applied even to
brutes, can we wonder if it should often, in a
person of more than ordinary  irritability, pro-
duce, or at any rate, accelerate the last and
incurable form of that disease, .to which at
first  perhaps there was only a delusive sem-
blance,  or  merely  an incipient approxima-
tion?
  Tasso, the celebrated poet, was once insti-
gated by the violence of an amorous impulse,
to embrace a beautiful woman in the presence
of her brother, who,  happening to be a man
of rank  and power,  punished this poetic li-
cense  by locking up the offender in a recep-
tacle for lunatics.  It is said that by this  con-
finement he was made mad,  who was before
only too impetuous or indiscreet.
  That a wretched being, who has been for
some time confined in a receptacle for luna-
tics, is actually insane, can no more prove that
he was so,  when he first entered it, than a
person's being affected with fever in the black 
156
LUNATIC ASYLUMS.
hole of Calcutta, is an evidence of his having
previously laboured under febrile infection.
   Bakewell, the late  celebrated agriculturist,
was accustomed to conquer  the insubordi-
nation, or any vicious irregularity of his horses,
not by the ordinary routine of whipping and
spurring,  but by the  milder and more effec-
tual method of kindness and caresses. And it
is worthy of being remembered  and practi-
cally  applied, that, although the human has
higher faculties than other animals, they have
still many sympathies  in common. There are
certain laws and feelings which  regulate and
govern alike every class and order of anima-
ted existence.
   In order to obtain a salutary influence over
the wanderings of a maniac, we must first se-
cure  his confidence.  This cannot be done,
without behaving towards him with a delicacy
due to his unfortunate state, which for the most
part ought to be regarded not as an abolition,
but as a suspension merely of the rational fa-
culties.   Lord Chesterfield speaks, in one of
his humourous essays, of a lady whose repu-
tation was not lost, but was only mislaid.  In
like manner, instead of saying of  a man, that
he has lost his senses, we should in many in-
stances more correctly perhaps say, that they 
             LUNATIC ASYLUMS.         157

 were mislaid. Derangement is not to be con-
 founded with destruction; we must not mis-
 take a cloud for night, or fancy, because the
 sun of reason is obscured, that it will never
 again  enliven  or illuminate with  its  beams.
 There  is ground to apprehend that fugitive
 folly is too often  converted into a fixed and
 settled phrenzy; a transient guest into an ir-
 removable tenant of the mind; an occasional
 and accidental aberration of intellect, into a
 confirmed and inveterate habit of dereliction,
 by a premature and too precipitate adoption of
 measures and methods of management, which
 sometimes, indeed, are necessary,  but which
 are so only in cases of extreme and ultimate
 desperation.
  A heavy responsibility presses upon those
 who preside or officiate in the asylums of  lu-
 nacy.  Little  is it known how much injustice
 is committed, and how much useless and wan-
 tonly inflicted misery is endured in those  in-
 firmaries for disordered, or rather cemeteries
for  deceased intellect.  Instead of trampling
upon, we ought to cherish,  and by  the most
delicate and anxious care, strive to nurse into
a clearer and  brighter flame  the still  glim-
mering embers  of  a  nearly-extinguished
mind.
<94
CW 1 
158         LUNATIC ASYLUMS.
  It is by no means the object of these re-
marks to depreciate the value of institutions
which, under a judicious and merciful super-
intendance, might be made essentially condu-
cive to the protection of lunatics themselves,
as well as to that of others, who would else
be continually exposed to  their violence and
caprice, But it is to be feared, that many have
been condemned to a state of insulation from
all rational and sympathising intercourse, be-
fore the necessity has occurred for so severe
a lot.   Diseased members  have been amputa-
ted from the trunk of society, before they have
become so incurable or unsound as absolutely
to require  separation.  Many of the depots
for the captivity of intellectual invalids may
be regarded only as nurseries for, and manu-
factories of,  madness; magazines or reservoirs
of lunacy, from which is issued, from time to
time, a sufficient  supply for perpetuating and
extending this formidable  disease,—a disease
which is not to be  remedied by stripes  or
strait-waistcoats, by imprisonment or impove-
rishment, but by  an unwearied  tenderness,
and by an unceasing and anxious superintend-
ance.
  The grand  council  of the country ought to
be aroused to a critical and inquisitorial scru- 
LUNATIC  ASYLUMS.
159
tiny into  the  arcana of our medical prisons,

into our  slaughter-houses for  the  destruction

and mutilation of the  human mind.*


  * Vide Monthly Magazine.  Medical Report for February, 1808.
  Not only the last paragraph, but nearly eveiy sentence of this Essay,
is a repetition of what I had published, many years ago, in the above
periodical work.  Those statements and observations with regard to
mad-houses, which were then reprobated either as altogether ground-
less, or as unpardonably exaggerated, have since been remarkably con-
firmed  to the fullest extent, by the parliamentary reports which have
lately appeared  on  the same subject, and which have so deeply inte-
rested every humane and intelligent individual in the empire 
r 
ESSAY XXI.
           9
THE IMPORTANCE OF COUNTERACTING THE TEN-
         DENCY TO MENTAL DISEASE.

  " De toutes choses les naissanccs sont foibles et tendres. Pourtant
faut-il avoir les yeux ouverts aux commencements, car comme alors en
sa pctitesse on ne decouvre pas le danger,—quand il est accru, on ne'en
decouvre plus de remede."
                                   Montaigne.
                                            \
   The commencement of morbid irritation is
seldom  sufficiently  watched and  corrected.
Almost every  nervous affection  may be con-
sidered as an approach to insanity. The com-
ing on of melancholy, like that of the evening
darkness,  is  scarcely perceptible in its  en-
croachments.   The gradual establishment of
intellectual hallucination is traced with admi-
rable fidelity in  the following delineation of
Dr. Johnson.
   " Some particular train  of ideas fixes upon
the mind.  All other intellectual gratifications
are rejected.  The  mind,  in weariness or lei-
sure, recurs constantly to the favourite  con-
ception ; and feasts on the luscious falsehood. 
162       TENDENCY TO INSANITY.

whenever it is offended with the bitterness of
truth.  By degrees, the reign of fancy is con-
firmed. She grows first imperious, and in time
despotic.   These fictions begin to operate as
realities. False opinions fasten upon the mind:
and life passes in dreams of rapture or of an-
guish."*
  There are  floating atoms  or minute em-
bryos of insanity which cannot  be discerned
by the naked or uneducated eye.  One of the
most important requisites in the character of
a Physician,  is the  capacity of detecting the
earliest rudiments,  and  the scarcely-formed
filaments of  disease;  so  that by  timely care
and well-adapted means, he may prevent them
from growing and collecting into a more pal-
pable and substantial form.
  I well recollect an interesting case of a per-
son whose mind had received the  highest cul-
ture, and who was endowed with an exquisite
sensibility.  The disease was,  in his instance,
of gradual,  almost  of imperceptible growth.
The shadow  of  melancholy slowly advanced
until it had produced a total eclipse of the un-
derstanding.
  The importance cannot be too deeply im-
pressed,  of counteracting a tendency to this
* Rassclas. 
          TENDENCY TO INSANITY.      163

disease.  When it is fully formed and estab-
lished by habit, our efforts will seldom prove
of any avail.  We might in that case  as well
almost attempt, by the spell of a professional
recipe, to break asunder the chain which binds
the body of a maniac to the floor, as the strong
concatenation of thought which is still" more
closely riveted around  his mind.  In a de-
rangement of  the  intellectual faculties, the
first moment of its appearance is  often the
only one  at  which it may be combated with
any certainty of success.  The smallest speck
on  the edge of the horizon ought to be re-
garded with awe, as portending, if not speed-
ily  dispersed, an universal and impenetrable
gloom.
  It is not in the adult and fully-established
form of insanity, that we can best  learn its
origin, or become thoroughly acquainted with
its character. A mad-house is, on this account,
an insufficient school for acquiring an intimate
and correct knowledge of madness. No man,
by  studying merely  a hortus siccus, would
think of making himself a botanist.   In order
to  lay any claim  to  that title, he must con-
template plants, not as they are pinned down
in  a port-folio, but at the period when they
first emerge from the soil, and  at every suc-
cessive stage of their history and growth. 
164
LUCID INTERVALS.
             LUCID INTERVALS.

  It is astonishing  with what  management
and  sagacity a maniac,  when  he is impelled
by a sufficient motive, can keep the secret of
his madness. I was once very  nearly imposed
upon by a patient of this description, who, by
means  of extraordinary  art and exertion, had
effected his escape over the barriers  of con-
finement, and, in order  to elude pursuit, soli-
cited professional evidence  in favour of  his
sanity.  A particular  train of thought, which
for a time lay silent and secret within the  re-
cesses of his mind, all at  once, by an accidental
touch kindled into an unexpected and  terrible
explosion.
  Lucid intervals are  subjects  deserving of
the  very particular study of the legal, as well
as the medical profession. There are, in fact,
few cases of mania, or melancholy, where  the
light of reason does not now  and then shine
between the clouds.   In fevers of the mind,
as well as those  of the body, there occur fre-
quent intermissions.  But the  mere interrup-
tion  of a disorder is not to be mistaken for its
cure, or its ultimate conclusion.  Little stress
ought to be laid upon those occasional and un-
certain disentanglements of intellect, in which 
LUCID INTERVALS.
165
the patient is for a time only extricated from
the labyrinth of his morbid hallucinations.
Madmen may shew, at starts, more sense than
ordinary men. There is perhaps as much ge-
nius confined, as at large ; and he who should
court corruscations of talent, might be as like-
ly to  meet with them in a receptacle for lu-
natics, as in almost any other theatre of intel-
lectual exhibition.   But the flashes of wit be-
tray too often the ruins  of wisdom: and the
mind which is conspicuous for the  brilliancy,
will frequently be found deficient in the stea*
diness, of its lustre.
22 
 
ESSAY XXIL
                BLEEDING.


   Pneumonia, or  pleurisy,  is  one  of the
few complaints in which an early and  often a
repeated application of the lancet is in gene-
ral of the most urgent and indispensable ne-
cessity.  If blood-letting be had recourse to
at a proper period,  and to a sufficient  extent,
which  of course must vary according  to the
symptoms of  the disease, and  the constitu-
tional habit of the patient, it will seldom fail,
without much other aid, to remove a disease
that otherwise might, and not unfrequently
does, in a very short time, terminate in death.
But it is a matter of serious and essential im-
portance,  to  discriminate  between genuine
pleurisy and those pains,  difficulty of breath-
ing,  and other associated symptoms,  which
arise, not from inflamation or  too high  excite-
ment, but merely from nervous weakness and
depression.  In the  latter case,  venisection 
168
BLEEDING.
is as injurious to health, as in the former it is
necessary  to the   preservation of life.  To
draw blood from a nervous patient, is, in many
instances, like loosening the chords  of a mu-
sical instrument, whose tones are already de-
fective from want of sufficient tension.
   Pain in any part is too generally  considered
as  an  evidence of inflammation ;  whereas it
more frequently arises from the difficulty with
which a debilitated or  obstructed  organ per-
forms its accustomed and salutary office.
   In modern times, inflammatory  fever, or a
habit indicating  an excess of general  excite-
ment, very rarely  indeed occurs. I have never
met with an instance of  proper fever  which
appeared to me  to justify  the opening of a
vein.* Local inflammation is so far from opera-
ting invariably  as  an argument for, may con-
stitute, in  some instances, even an objection
against the application of the  lancet.   Local

  * It would reconcile many of the apparent oppositions and incongrui-
ties which occur in the works of those who have written upon the dis-
eases of the human frame at  different stages of its history, to consider,
that man, the subject upon which they write, has, during the interve-
ning periods, undergone considerable changes in his physical as well as
in his moral constitution. Sydenham was eminently judicious and suc-
cessful in his time.  But the physician, who, in this comparatively ener-
vated and puny age, was, in the exercise of his profession, to imitate, with-
out modification or reserve, the bold and energetic  style of practice
adopted by that great master of his art, would not be unlikely, by the
empirical rashness of his conduct, to injure, if not destroy, in almost every
instance in which he ventured to prescribe. 
BLEEDING.              169
inflammation is often only a partial accumula-
tion  of that  excitement  which ought to be
equally distributed through the whole frame.
The frame in general is, of course, likely in
such cases to be proportionably impoverished,
and  will of consequence, be  rendered less
able to bear any  artificial or extraordinary
evacuation.
  Those hsemorrhages which are so common
to the  nervous, more especially of the other
sex, rarely indicate the propriety of artificial
blood-letting, although in such cases, it is often
employed.   Haemorrhage may be occasioned
either  by too copious a production of the vital
fluid;  by some partial accumulation of it; or
by the laxity or tenuity of the vessels  which
contain it.   In  the present  condition of the
human framej enfeebled  as it is, by every spe-
cies of luxury and effeminacy, this, as well as
most other  modes  of physical derangement,
originate, in  a  majority of cases, from a de-
ficiency of  vigour.   Haemorrhage seldom,
comparatively, arises from a more than ordi-
nary mass or impetus of blood ;  but in gene-
ral from a want of that  contractile power in
the artery which is necessary to resist its ten-
dency to immoderate effusion.
   True pleurisy, as I have already  stated, in
most cases, imperiously  demands immediate 
170             BLEEDING.
 vensesection.  But with true pleurisy are apt
 to be confounded those  pulmonary or asth-
 matic affections, which, for the most part, com-
 mence their attacks  in  advanced  life, and
 which are not  attended  with  any active in-
 flammation, but arise  merely from the worn*
 out condition of superannuated lungs.   The
 difficulty  of breathing, pain, and oppressed
 circulation, will  seldom,  in such instances,
justify the subtraction  of  blood.  We cannot
 be too fearful and tender in deducting from
 an old man any  portion,  however small, of
 that fluid, the remaining quantity of  which is
 barely sufficient to support the vigour, or even
 the vitality of  his enfeebled  and declining
 frame.  I have lately  had an opportunity of
witnessing more than one  case, in which copi-
ous and repeated bleeding relieved  an  asth-
matic old man from most other symptoms of
disease; but at the same time left a degree of
weakness  from which  he  was not able to re-
cover, and which was, in  no long time,  fatal
in  its  result.  Bleeding may,  in some in-
stances, produce a temporary  alleviation of
pain, only by inducing  that debility of the ge-
neral powers of the system, which, of course,
deducts in a proportionate degree from the
particular power of sensation. 
BLEEDING.
171
  The fatal result  of real or apparent apo-
plexy, may sometimes arise from the manner
in which it is treated.  At the sight of a per-
son in any kind of fit, the surgeon  almost in-
stinctively pulls out  his lancet.  Sometimes,
even  after the paroxysm has subsided, bleed-
ing is had recourse to from a vague and em-
pirical notion  of  its indiscriminate utility in
this class of diseases.  Less slaughter, I am
convinced, has been effected  by the sword,
than by the lancet,—that minute instrument of
mighty mischief!
  From  the period of life at which apoplectic
and paralytic  seizures are most apt to take
place  ; from the enfeebling habits or diseases
which in a large proportion of cases have pre-
ceded and prepared the way for their occur-
rence ; and from the variety of circumstances
indicating a worn  and debilitated frame, which
almost invariably accompany such  attacks,  it
would seem natural to infer, that although the
habitual  use  of  stimuli may, in   many in-
stances,  have  helped to bring on this  deplor-
able state of the constitution; a recovery from
it, when it is practicable, can be effected only
by their  temporary application;  and that, on
the contrary, to have recourse, in  so extreme a
case of actual  weakness, attended by a partial
suspension of the functions of life, to the most 
172               BLEEDING.
direct and powerful means  of producing still
further weakness and exhaustion, is, in effect,
forcibly  to  overwhelm  the sinking,  and  to
trample upon the already prostrate.
   My  opinions  upon this  subject cannot be
better sanctioned than by the authority of the
late venerable  Dr.  Heberden, whose  own
words relative to a point so important, it  may
not be improper to make use of: " Etenim ju-
" niores  et  robusti non tarn obnoxii sunt his
" morbis (apoplexy and palsy) quam pueri in-
" firmi,  et effaeti  senes, in quibus vires nutri-
" endse sunt et excitandae, potius quam minu-
" endae ; dum multa sanguinis profusio,  quem-
" admodum in submersis fieri dicitur, omnes
" naturae conatus reprimit,  et tenues vitse re-
" liquias penitus  extinguit.   Quod si  consula-
" mus  experientiam,  hacc,  quantum possum
"judicare,  testatur,   copiosas sanguinis  mis-
" siones saepe nocuisse,  easque in non paucis
" gegrotis, tutius  fuisse, praetermissas."*

 * The commentaries of Dr. Heberden, from which the above quotation
has been made, comprise the scanty but invaluable results of a long life of
extensive and diligent, as well as of correct and sagacious observation
That experienced and higlily •accomplished practitioner, in this his literary
legacy to the public, has communicated a large portion of what is at pre-
sent known in the practical part of medicine:—a science, which, after the
lapse of so many ages, may still be regarded as at a great distance from
its maturity.
           " When will thy long minority expire ?"
                                        Young. 
                 BLEEDING.              l^g

    In the preceding observations, it is far from
 my intention to inculcate that bleeding is not,
 in many instances  of apoplexy or  palsy,  abso-
 lutely necessary to the life of the patient; but,
 that on the other hand, there are also many in-
 stances in which it may with more  propriety
 be omitted, and that such diseases would not
 be so generally fatal, if the lancet were more
 cautiously and less indiscriminately employed.
   It should be remarked, however, that weak-
 ness is not always  an insuperable argument
 against the propriety of bleeding.   The arte-
 ries, whose contractile  power has, from any
 cause, been considerably impaired, are some-
 times not able,  without  difficulty  and  febrile
 uneasiness, to propel even their usual quan-
 tity of blood.  Under such circumstances, they
 ought, perhaps, to be in some measure reliev-
 ed from their burden by timely and moderate
 evacuation.  The existence of a morbid ple-
 thora is not to be ascertained merely by the ab-
 solute mass of fluid, or even by its  proportion
 to the diameter  of  the vessels which it occu-
 pies ; but likewise  by a circumstance  which
 is  not, perhaps,  sufficiently attended to; the
 less or greater degree of power which, in any
particular instance, the heart and arteries may
possess,  of urging  with  unintermitting con-
stancy, the tide of sanguineous circulation.
        23 
174
BLEEDING.
  By most practitioners it  is  imagined, that
what is called local bleeding, is preferable, in
many cases, to that which  is called general.
In apoplexy, for instance,  the pressure upon
the brain is supposed to be relieved more ef-
fectually, as well as more expeditiously, by an
operation on a vessel in the neck, than on one
in either of the arms; in pleurisy, pthisis, or
catarrh, by cupping and leeches in the breast or
side affected, than any  where else.   When
more attentively  considered,  however,  the
matter will appear, perhaps, in a somewhat
different light. There is no such thing, in fact,
as local bleeding, if by that term be meant an
evacuation from one part of the vascular sys-
tem, without its affecting in the same propor-
tion every other.  When  a fluid is in  a con-
stant state of  circulation through a round of
vessels, it can be of little  consequence from
what part of that circle  any quantity of it is
deducted.  If we drink out of a canal, through
which flows a free and uninterrupted stream,
in whatever place the draught be taken, it
must equally affect the level of its surface and
the impetuosity of its course. 
ESSAY XXIII.
                PHARMACY.

  Pharmacy  may be abused;  but it is  not
therefore to be despised.  Nature has provi-
ded  physic to relieve the ailments,  as it  has
food for the nourishment and support, of man.
The suitable and seasonable use of the one is
almost as necessary in order to rectify occa-
sional  deviations  from health, as  that of the
other is for its ordinary maintenance and pre-
servation. There are, however, several seem-
ing abuses of pharmacy, to which I shall here
venture to advert, although, I hope, with  due
reverence towards established usage.
  In cases of convalescence from acute  dis-
ease, to prolong a medicinal course, for  the
sake merely of still further strengthening, af-
ter the natural desire has returned for whole-
some and substantial food, is a practice that
appears to me contrary to common sense, al-
though it be not altogether so to ordinary rou-
tine.  Under such circumstances,  " to throw 
176             PHARMACY.

in the bark," is to those who are asking for
bread, giving a  stone. There is no such thing
as a permanently strengthening medicine.  It
is only what nourishes, that gives  any durable
vigour or  support.  Drugs, although not in
general intoxicating, are at best unnatural sti-
muli; and of course are seldom to be resorted
to, except  in that state of the constitution in
which it cannot be duly excited by the ordi-
nary incentives to vital and healthy action.
   If an exception should be made in favour of
the chronic use of any medicine, it ought, per-
haps, to be allowed in the case of steel. To a
lady who  enquired of Sydenham,  how long
she should continue to take this remedy, he
replied, " thirty years: and if you are not well
then,  begin it  again."  It may appear some-
what singular, that the very same metal, which
is so often  employed as a weapon of destruc-
tion in the hand of the warrior or the assas-
sin, should in  that of an intelligent and dis-
cerning physician, be converted  into one of
the most powerful instruments to be found in
the magazine of nature, for restoring health,
and giving  sometimes,  as  it  were by magic.
new life, vigour,  and even beauty, to the hu-
man frame.
   In the prescriptions of  physicians, as well
as in the peparations of cookery,  a simplicity 
PHARMACY.
177
ought to be  observed,  which is, in general,
perhaps, not sufficiently attended to. A num-
ber of different dishes,  which,  separately ta-
ken, might be wholesome and nutritious, must
all together form a compound that cannot fail
to have an unfavourable and disturbing effect
upon the organs of digestion. In like manner,
a glass of port wine or  a glass  of  Madeira, a
draught of ale or one of porter, might, in a
state of debility or fatigue, for a time at  least,
invigorate and refresh; while,  if we take a
draught, the  same in quantity,  but composed
of all these different liquors, we  shall find that,
instead of enlivening and  refreshing,  it will
nauseate and oppress.   And yet  something
similar to this daily takes place in the formulae
of medical practitioners.  A variety of drugs
are often combined in ihe same recipe, each
of  which might be good, but the whole of
which cannot.  A mixture of corroborants or
tonics, is not necessarily a tonic or corrobo-
rative mixture.  A prescription  ought seldom,
perhaps, to contain more than one active and
efficient ingredient. We should thus give that
ingredient fair play;  and by a  competent re-
petition  of trials, might be able to ascertain,
with tolerable correctness, its kind and degree
of  influence  upon the constitution:  whereas,
out of a confused and heterogeneous mass, it 
178
PHARMACY.
is impossible for us to discriminate the indi-
vidual operation  of any one  of the  articles
which compose it.
  It may  be proper here to observe, that al-
though there should seldom be a variety in the
same prescription,  it is expedient, more es-
pecially in chronic cases, that the prescriptions
should be occasionally varied, in order to se-
cure, for any length of time,  the  production
of the same effect.   By changing the kind,
we  render it less necessary to  increase the
quantity  of a restorative agent.  When, as
after a certain period, it will generally happen,
any single remedy has lost in some degree its
salutary action, the  application of another, al-
though not intrinsically superior in power, will
often be necessary to preserve a continuity of
progress towards a state  of perfect restora-
tion.  A considerable dexterity in frequently
altering,  or  in modifying anew, the  admin-
istration of remedies, is in a particular man-
ner called for during the protracted contin-
uance of most nervous diseases.
  In appreciating the value of a pharmaceu-
tical course, we ought not to overlook  its use
in affording a certain degree of interest and
occupation to the mind of a valetudinarian. In
the  absence of every diversion, even the swal-
lowing of physic may be a source  of  amuse- 
PHARMACY.
179
    ment.  The  times  for  taking the different
    draughts or doses, are so many epochs in the
    chronology of an hypochondriac,  which,  by
    dividing, help to conquer the tedium of his
    day.
      Such is the power of imagination; that the
    result of a medicine depends much upon the
    respect which a patient feels for his physician.
    Faith will give a virtue to the most inefficient
    remedy : on  the other hand, a distrust in the
£  ability  of a professional adviser, will often de-
    feat the tendency of his most judicious and
    seasonable prescription.  It is often necessary
    that the mental disposition of the invalid should
    co-operate with  the drugs, in order to give
    them their fullest efficacy.  Practitioners, who
    by any means have become celebrated or pop-
    ular, are often, on  that  very  account,  more
    successful than  others in their treatment of
    diseases.  A similar  remark  may  be made
    with regard to medicines themselves.  A new
    medicine will often obtain a fortuitous fame,
    during the continuance of which, there is  no
    doubt that it  actually produces some of those
    salutary  effects which are ascribed to it.   But
    the fault of these new remedies is,  that they
    will not keep. For as soon  as the caprice of
    the day has gone by, and  fashion has  with-
    drawn its protecting influence, the once cele- 
180            PHARMACY.
brated recipe is divested of its beneficial pro-
perties, if it do not become positively delete-
rious ;  by which it would  appear, that its re-
putation had not been the result of its saluta-
ry efficacy; but that  its salutary efficacy had
been, in a great measure at least, the result of
its reputation. However sceptical a physician
may be with regard  to the inherent or per-
manent qualities of a specific  in vogue, it is
his duty, perhaps, to take advantage of the tide
of opinion, as  long as  it flows in  its favour.
He may honestly make use of his  patient's
credulity,  in order  to  relieve  him from the
pressure of his disease, and render the partial
weakness  of his mind instrumental to the gen-
eral restoration of his corporeal strength.   A
wholesome prejudice should be respected.  It
is  of little consequence whether  a  man  be
healed through the medium of his fancy or his
stomach. 
ESSAY XXVI.
                ABLUTION.


  Personal cleanliness ought to be added to
the list of the cardinal virtues, not only as be-
ing equally conducive with any of them to the
welfare of the body, but  as  it is connected
with, and for the most part implies,  a certain
degree of delicacy and purity of mind.  For
the generality of cutaneous diseases, there is
not, perhaps, a better recipe  in the pharma-
copeia than is to be found in one of the peri-
odical  papers  of the " World."  " Take  of
pure clean water quantum sufficit: put it into a
clean earthen or china basin: then take a clean
linen  cloth ; dip it in that water;  and  ap-
ply it to the  part affected, night and  morning,
or afternoon, as occasion may require."
  At the same time, that I would wish to in-
culcate the importance of frequent ablution, I
cannot too deeply impress my opinion of the
danger that  may arise  from a careless and
      24 
182
ABLUTION.
indiscriminate use of the cold bath ; a fashion-
able remedy which is much more  frequently
injurious than those who have recourse  to it
seem to be aware of.   There  are certain ob-
structions or irregularities which the shock of
the cold bath  may be calculated to rectify or
remove: but that a course of shocks should
be in general likely to invigorate a feeble, or
give, what is called, tone to a relaxed consti-
tution, is too  glaringly inconsistent with the
suggestions of ordinary sense, to harmonize
with the genuine principles  of medical philo-
sophy.
   A patient is, for  the most part, to be raised
to a state of strength, from the depression of
chronic  debility,  only by those influences
which act gradually and almost imperceptibly,
like that of the  air which  he is  constantly^
though unconsciously, breathing, or that pro-
cess of assimilation,  which is every moment
going on in the body, without his being aware
of it.
   Bathing in the sea is, in general, more be-
neficial, and less liable to danger or inconve-
nience, than the ordinary cold bath; princi-
pally, if not entirely, because the marine  tem-
perature being higher, the transition from one
element to another is less violent in the for-
mer case than in the latter.   As to the saline 
ABLUTION.              183
particles of this, or any of the chemical con-
stituents, upon which is supposed to depend,
in a great measure, the virtue of other baths
of medicinal celebrity, they can scarcely have
any important effect upon the body during the
usual period of its immersion.  Regarding, as
it seems reasonable to  do, the act of bathing
as in the generality of cases beneficial only so
far as it performs the office of ablution, it will
appear that the utility of every species  of wa-
ter is nearly equal, in reference to external ap-
plication.
   Ablution, which, in the  Mosaic law, consti-
tuted one  of its most important ceremonies,
and, in the Christian, was originally inculcated
as  an  essential  and introductory  rite, and
which has  been always  enjoined as necessary
for the preservation of health, has of late been
happily extended to the  successful  manage-
ment of disease.*  It  has been  well  ascer-
tained that fevers may, in  a number  of cases,
be  washed away almost without any pharma-
ceutical assistance.

 * In noticing the application of washing to the treatment of diseases, we
cannot but refer, with gratitude and respect, to the scientific and benevo-
lent exertions of the late Dr. Currie, whose splendid and solid talents,
were employed with equal success, in restoring the health of the living,
and embalming the memory of the dead. No selfish insincerity can be sus-
pected in an expression of reverence for the character of one whose ear
it will never reach. The voice of praise, however loud, cannot intemipt
the silence, or penetrate the secrecy  of the tomb. 
184*             ablution.
  Nervous diseases also, have been more ef-
fectually perhaps, than by any other remedy,
relieved by the cold bath, which, while it tends
duly to excite the too sluggish action of  the
vessels, clears  away  likewise  that  invisible
filth, by which their cutaneous mouths are, by
a criminal negligence,  so  frequently block-
aded.
  To  the mansions of the wealthy, a bath
ought to be considered as an indispensable ap-
pendage : and if institutions for the corporeal
purification  of the lower classes of society
were generally  established, such a  measure
could not fail to produce an incalculable dimi-
nution of disease ; and would thus supersede,
to a certain  degree, the more expensive  ne-
cessity of hospitals, and that of the other me-
dicinal asylums for popular refuge and relief 
ESSAY  XXV.
             BODILY EXERCISE.

  "Whatever hope the dreams of specula-
tion may suggest, of observing the proportion
between nutriment and  labour, and keeping
the body in a healthy state, by supplies exact-
ly suited to its waste, we know that, in effect,
the vital powers, unexcited  by motion, grow
gradually languid ; that as their vigour fails,
obstructions are  generated; and  from ob-
structions proceed most of those pains which
wear  us away slowly by periodical tortures,
and which,  although  they sometimes suffer
life to be long, condemn it to  be useless;
chain  us down to the couch of misery; and
mock us with the hopes of death."*
  A man, it should be considered, may sit and
lie,  as well as eat and drink, to excess.  There
is a debauchery of inaction,  as well as of re-
pletion or stimulation.    No other abstinence,
however salutary, can compensate the mis-

                  * Johnson. 
 186         BODILY EXERCISE.

 chief that attends  upon an abstinence from
 exercise.
   There is not any means better adapted than
 bodily exercise  for the cure, as well as pre-
 vention, more particularly of what are called
 nervous diseases.   A man suffering under a
 fit of the vapours, will  often find that  he is
 able to walk it  off.   He can be exonerated
 from the load upon his mind by the violent or
 continued agitation of his body.  I have heard
 of an eminently successful manager of the in-
 sane, who  cured his patients by putting them
 to hard labour.  By making  them literally
 work like  horses, he brought  them to think
 and feel again like rational beings.
   Of the important effects arising from bodily
 labour,  assisted, perhaps,  by  mental excite-
 ment, we have a remarkable instance recorded
 in the  " Monita et  Precepta,"  of Dr. Mead.
 " A young student at college became so deep-
 ly hypochondriac, as to proclaim himself dead;
 and ordered the college bells to be tolled on
 the occasion of his death.   In this he was in-
 dulged : but the man employed to execute the
 task, appeared to the student to perform it so
 imperfectly, that he arose from his bed in a
 fury of passion, to toll the bell for his own de-
 parture.  When he had finished, he retired
kto his bed  in a state of profuse perspiration, 
            BODILY EXERCISE.         187

and was from  that  moment alive and well."
It would seem, in such a case, as if the skin
having been relaxed by exertion, hypochon-
driasis evaporated through its pores.
  Improvements in the mechanism of modern
carriages, by which they are made to convey
a person from place to place, almost without
giving him a sense of motion, may be one of
the circumstances that have contributed to the
encreased prevalence of those maladies which
originate in a great degree from a fashionable
indulgence in lassitude and languor.
  Walking is, no doubt, best adapted to a state
of unblemished health or unimpaired vigour.
But, for the feeble  and  hypochondriacal,  or
those who are affected by any visceral obstruc-
tion or disease, riding on horseback is for the
most  part preferable to any other kind of ex-
cise.   For pthisis,  Sydenham regarded it as
an absolute specific.   I have myself frequent-
ly seen instances of broken-up spirits, and ap-
parently ruined constitutions, in which  an al-
together unexpected restoration to strength
and cheerfulness, has been effected  by horse
exercise, when almost every other method of
recovery had been tried without any sensible
advantage.  To many of my nervous, as well
as bilious patients, I have recommended it, as 
188         BODILY EXERCTSE.
almost my sole prescription, to  live on horse-
back.
  No persons, perhaps, more strikingly illus-
trate the importance of bodily exercise, than
that class of bon vivants who combine with a
luxurious mode of living, amusements, which
consist  in strenuous and almost indefatigable
exertions.  The sportsman works as hard for
pastime, as the ordinary day labourer is obli-
ged to do for bread.   The  toils of both are
equally arduous;  and differ only in the one
being a matter of choice, and the other of ne-
cessity.  The unwholesome pleasures of the
table  are  in a  manner compensated  by the
salutary enjoyments of the chase. An evening
of noisy and jovial intemperance, not unusu-
ally crowns a day of equally jovial and noisy
activity ; and a man will often be found for a
long time to escape the dangers of the field,
and the still more imminent dangers of the
festival.  The follower of the  hounds is on
the road to health, although he  may not be in
search of it:  and if it were not for the exces-
ses, which are too frequently connected with
his manner of life, it might prove singularly
conducive to vigour and longevity.   As it is,
however,  the fox-hunter  seldom dies of  a
broken neck, to which he seems continually
liable, but very generally of a broken  consti- 
BODILY EXERCISE.
189
tution, to which his  habits,  more  inevitably,
although  less  obviously  expose  him.    He
stands out longer, indeed, than the sedentary
or indolent debauchee ; but yields at length
to the destructive power of licentious indul-
gence, with all the sufferings, although without
any of the glory or the merits of a martyr.
Coxe,  I think, states, in his History of the
Bourbons  of Spain, that hunting first became
there a royal amusement, or at least, was more
assiduously cultivated as such, in consequence
of its having been professionally  advised as
an antidotegto the hypochondriasis, to  which
that  augusnamily were constitutionally liable.
25 
•, 
ESSAY XXVI.
 REAL EVILS,  A  REMEDY FOR THOSE OP THE
               IMAGINATION.

  The author has often been applied to by hy-
pochondriacs, who fancied themselves phthisi-
cal.   Hypochondriasis and phthisis are  sel-
dom united.   Danger of this latter disease is,
for the most part,  in the inverse ratio of ap-
prehension.   He  who  thinks  himself con-
sumptive, will very rarely be found to be so.
Prevalent as phthisis unfortunately is, the fan-
cy is much more frequently disordered than
the organs of respiration.   In the absence of
any other malady, the physician is often cal-
led  upon to cure an alarm.
  I was once consulted by a hypochondriacal
young man, who conceived, without the small-
est  foundation,  that he was afflicted with a
diseased liver.  He had previously applied to
several of his friends, who smiled at his com-
plaint, as the fiction merely of a capricious 
192     REAL EVILS, A REMEDY FOR

imagination.   Seeing, though his disease was
exclusively mental, that, at the same time, it
was too deeply rooted to be removed by ar-
gument or ridicule, 1 listened to the statement
of his feelings with the most respectful atten-
tion ; apparently coincided with him in his no-
tion of  the malady; and professed to treat it
as if it were in fact a disorder of a particular
viscus.  The patient had taken, only for a short
time, what had been prescribed ostensibly for
his liver, before he found that the pain in his
right side,  and other symptoms which he at-
tributed to a deranged condition of that organ,
were considerably alleviated:  and in  little
more than a month, every trace of his hepatic
affection was completely  obliterated.  It  is
long since he has been restored to a state of
healthy activity and unobscured chearfulness.
  A diseased fancy will not unfrequently pro-
duce nearly all the symptoms,  or at least all
the sensations of bodily disease. But any very
serious malady of the latter kind is calculated,
on  the  other  hand, to  dissipate the clouds
which  hover over the  imagination.  Hypo-
chondriasis may often thank calamity for its
cure.
  Some years ago, I knew a lady who had for
a long time been a miserable  victim to the
vapours, but who was completely cured of 
        THOSE OP THE IMAGINATION.    193

this complaint by the supervening of another,
which  was more immediately alarming, and
which precluded indeed the possibility of much
longer life.  No sooner was her new disease
ascertained to be an  aneurism of the aorta,
and the necessary result of that complaint was
explained to her, than all her nervous feelings
vanished: and she even bore the announce-
ment of her inevitable fate with a calmness
which  is seldom exhibited under such trying
circumstances.  The  near prospect of death,
instead of overpowering,  seemed to  brace
anew the relaxed energies of her frame ; and
what is well worthy of  remark,  so far from
being,  during her  subsequent days, selfishly
absorbed by her real, as she had been before
by her imaginary ailments, she interested her-
self  almost continually and exclusively about
the happiness of others;  and, in proportion
as she became more  amiable, found herself
less  wretched.
  In the crucible of serious sorrow, the affec-
tions are, in  general, purified  and refined.
But trials of a lighter sort have often an un-
desirable rather than  a  happy influence upon
the character.   A high degree of heat melts,
a lower merely  soils and tarnishes the  metal
which is exposed to its influence.  Truly tra-
gical misfortune begets  a kind of heroic com- 
194     REAL EVILS, A REMEDY FOR
posure.  Distress, when it is  profound, be-
comes the parent of equanimity.  It renders
our feelings proof against the petty hostilities
of fortune.  What were before  cares, are, un-
der such circumstances, often  converted into
comforts.   Even pain  of body operates as
mental relief.  Adversity, when it assumes its
more awful form, lifts  us above the level of
the  earth, so that we are no longer incommo-
ded  by  the roughnesses or inequalities of its
surface.  From this state of  elevated sorrow,
a man looks  down  upon the common-place
troubles of life with the  same sort of contempt
or indifference as upon the toys and trifles of
his childhood. The mind itself is enlarged by
the  magnitude of its misery.
  Such  may be conceived, for instance, to be
the  mental situation of a man of even ordi-
nary feeling, under the recent  and irretrieva-
ble loss of one whose soul had been in a man-
ner  amalgamated  with his own; between
whom and  himself, there had long been not a
sympathy merely, but a unity almost of con-
sciousness. To the ordinary weight of the at-
mosphere  we become,  on  account  of its un-
ceasing pressure, altogether  insensible.  But
the   sudden removal of this  imperceptible
weight would occasion agonizing convulsions.
In like manner, where the unwearied assidui- 
        THOSE OP THE IMAGINATION.     195

ties of domestic tenderness, of which  from
long familiarity with them we are apt to  grow
almost unconscious, are, by the most solemn
of human events, for ever withdrawn, our eyes
are often, for the first time, opened to our late
happiness by the conviction of its irrevocable
departure. 
 
ESSAY XXVII.
                OCCUPATION.

  Business, attended with  extreme care and
uneasiness, is, perhaps, less  undesirable than
the having no subject at all of uneasiness  or
care.   The worst kind of air is not more cer-
tainly fatal than a vacuum.  Inaction  is not
rest: recumbency  is  not  repose.   Although
we  squander our exertions upon an insignifi-
cant or undeserving object, the pains we take
to attain it are attended with advantage as well
as pleasure.   The means are necessarily use-
ful, however worthless may be the end. That
the passion for gaming  should prevail, as it
so frequently does, in minds of a superior or-
der, is to be attributed to a principle different
from avarice.   Men of that character love the
dice, in general, not so much  from the pros-
pect of the wealth which they  may chance to
        26 
198
OCCUPATION.
 from the table, as from  that very agitation of
 mind, and that strain of attention, which seems
 so unenviable to a tranquil  and disengaged
 spectator.   Gambling is a miserable  refuge
 from the still greater miseries of indolence
 and vacuity.  So  dependent  is the mind of
 man upon novelty and expectation, or, in an-
 other word,  upon  engagement, that he adds
 artificial chances  to those which are insepar-
 ably attached to his nature and condition.  As
 if the inevitable vicissitudes of human  life did
 not sufficiently endanger his peace,  he ex-
 poses himself, unnecessarily and wantonly, to
 be trodden under the foot of fortune, or to be
 crushed by the revolution of her wheel.
   Expectation is the vital principle of happi-
 ness.  It is that which  constantly stimulates
 us to exertion, and fills  up the vacant spaces
 of life.  We are in general more interested by
 a  precarious  good in prospect,  than  by the
 most valuable realities in our possession. The
 blossoms of hope are better than the ripened
 fruits of fortune.   We complain of the vicis-
 situdes and  uncertainty  attending upon our
 present state: and yet it is, in this very uncer-
 tainty and vicissitude, that its  interest,  and of
course its value, principally consists.   Anti-
cipated change constitutes the predominant 
OCCUPATION.
199
charm of life.  What we imagine that we may
be, reconciles  us to an endurance of what we
are.   Were a map to be presented to  us, in
which we could  discern the windings of our
future  way as  distinctly as  we can look back
upon our past past route,  our desire to pro-
ceed in the journey of life would be no  great-
er, than  it is  to retrace the steps  which we
have already trodden.   If  we could lift the
curtain which divides the future from the pre-
sent, we should  find  that it was like one of
those  beautifully coloured  transparencies,
which are  contrived so as to  intercept the
view of uninteresting or disagreeable objects.
   There is an important practical  difference,
which is not, perhaps, sufficiently attended to,
betwixt effort and mere occupation of mind
—between agitation  and  action—between
strong  motions   and  strenuous  exertions.
To the  former the  hypochondriacal are of-
ten peculiarly liable: but they seem  in ge-
neral  to be disinclined to, and in some in-
stances to be almost incapable of the latter.
There is often a pressure upon  the  spirits,
which takes away, or essentially impairs, the
power of voluntary movement.  Many a me-
lancholic invalid is conscious of what the poet
Cowper remarks relative to himself.  " I have
that within me, which hinders me  wretchedly 
800
OCCUPATION.
in every thing that I ought to do; but is prone
to trifle, and let every good thing run to waste."
   The  possession  of that pecuniary abun-
dance which supplies  a man with the conve-
niences and accommodations of life, is often
an unfavourable circumstance  in his lot.  A
specious and  external welfare  is not unfre-
quently the indirect cause of that inward con-
dition, which is in fact, the more to be deplor-
ed, as it presents no ostensible claim upon our
sympathy and compassion.  No one feels so
strongly as the affluent and listless hypochon-
driac, the vast difference between prosperity
and happiness, betwixt possession and enjoy-
ment.   Opulence is the natural source of in-
dolence, and  indolence of disease,  Neces.
pity, inasmuch  as it impels to labour, is the mo-
ther of hilarity, as it proverbially is of inven*
tion,  Toil was made for man: and although
he may often inherit what is necessary to his
existence, he is, in every instance obliged to
earn what is essential to its enjoyment.  If we
wish for habitual cheerfulness, we must work
for it; there is no "royal road" to good spi-
rits.   For the most part, we find that none
are more  uneasy in themselves, than those
who are placed  in  what are called easy cir-
cumstances.   Few  persons have resolution 
OCCUPATION.            201
enough to supply the place of necessity. The
lounger's life is in fact a life of the most irk-
some labour.  Upon him who has no other
burden to carry, every hour presses as a load.
Instead of flying by him with an  evanescent
celerity, time tediously hovers over his head.
The sun, as in  the days of Joshua, seems to
stand still.
  I was  once consulted by a hypochondrial
patient who had been the greatest part of his
life a journeyman taylor; but who, by an un-
expected  accident,  became  unhappily ricjj,
and consequently no longer dependent for his
bread  upon drudgery and  confinement.  He
accordingly descended from his board.  But
Charles the Fifth, after having voluntarily de-
scended  from his throne, could not have re-
gretted more severely the injudicious renun-
ciation of his empire. This man, after having
thrown himself out of employment, fell ill of
the  tedium of  indolence.  He  discovered,
that the having nothing to do, was more un-
congenial to his constitution,  even than the
constrained attitude, and the close and heated
atmosphere in which he had been accustomed
to carry on his daily operations.  In  one re-
spect, however, the repentant mechanic was
less unfortunate than the imperial penitent. It 
SOS
OCCUPATION.
remained in the power of the former to rein-
state himself in his previous situation, which,
after having resumed it,  no motive could, a
second time, induce  him to relinquish.
  It is more difficult than is  generally ima-
gined, " to realise an independence."  For
this purpose, a mind  richly endowed is at least
as necessary  as a well-replenished purse. To
set  a man up in a business,  requires, for the
most part, a certain  capital.  To - set him up
comfortably in a state of idleness, besides a
pecuniary competency, requires  also a capital
ol  a  different  sort.   To render  retirement
tolerable,  we must  carry  into  it  a  stock of
ideas,  in  addition to our other funds.  We
cannot fill up the vacancy of leisure, except
from  the fulness of  our internal resources.
  The  drudge of mercantile or mechanical
employment patiently waits for the period,
when he  expects to be repaid for the hard-
ships of his present  servitude, by a final libe-
ration from his fetters. But when the wished-
for period arrives, he generally finds,  in the
emancipation which it brings, a punishment
for the desertion of his active duty, rather than
a recompence for having so long  discharged
it.  What  at a  distance appeared the most
enviable privilege, proves,  upon  trial,  to be 
OCCUPATION.            203
almost the severest penalty that could have
been  inflicted upon his unlicensed expecta-
tions.
  A man, the best part of whose life has been
spent in endeavours  after wealth,  however
successful he may be in the attainment of his
object, will scarcely ever become independent
of the pursuit. The slave of mercenary toil is
transformed into the more miserable victim
of mental malady.  Hypochondriasis fixes its
unsparing tooth upon the leavings of avarice.
The former, indeed, often  assumes the shape
of the latter, more especially when it attacks
the veteran votaries of Mammon.  The  retired
tradesman continuing to part with his money,
although he has ceased to acquire it, finds that
the balance of his books is not so much in his
favour as formerly.   He begins to fancy that
the fountain  must  soon be exhausted, from
which flows a perpetual stream  of  expendi-
ture.  He is haunted by the  spectre of poverty.
It is not improbable that he may thus starve
himself from a horror of famine,  or be driven
to live in a mad-house by the fear of dying in
a jail.
  So  necessary is employment, that no inno-
cent form which it can assume, ought to be
rejected or despised. Some men are too proud 
204
OCCUPATION.
to be pleased with what interests or amuses
the  generality of  mankind.  Their dignity
would be impaired in their own eyes by a par-
ticipation in ordinary pastimes. But when the
mind is left vacant of graver concerns, it is of
the highest moment, that it should be capable
of engaging  itself in trifles.   Philosophically
considered, almost all the subjects of human
occupation are trifling, when compared with
the incalculable importance of occupation it-
self.  An intellect of the most perfect organ-
ization possesses that compass  of contracti-
lity,  which enables it to take  up the  most
minute, as  well as to  grasp the largest object
within its reach, and for the time to be equal-
ly filled with either.
  Sir Isaac Newton, with no less justice, per-
haps, than modesty,  ascribed the superiority
which he appeared  to possess over other stu-
dents of philosophy, merely to his greater
patience or more continued controul over his
attention:  such a controul over  the attention
is not more essential to the acquirements, than
it is to the healthy condition of the mind. The
healthy condition of the mind may, indeed,
for the most  part, be considered as bearing
an exact proportion  to the degree in which
this desirable faculty is possessed. 
OCCUPATION.           205
   The advantage of indispensible occupation,
is never  more unequivocally evinced than in
cases of heavy calamity. The apparent aggra-
vation of an evil,  will not unfrequently be
found to constitute, in fact, the source of its
most effectual relief.   The situation of a wi-
dowed female, left in needy  circumstances
with a large family,  is often less truly deplo-
rable than that  of an opulent and  childless
dowager, who, in the absence of other objects
of interest and attention, has leisure and every
accommodation  for pampering her sorrow,
and of nursing dejection until  it  ripens  into
derangement.  Children, in the former case,
are, indeed, heavy weights hanging upon the
mind of the mother; but, like the weights
pulling upon the machinery of  a clock, they
are necessary to keep it in motion.  Such in-
cumbrances, as they are often called, may be
compared to a drag upon the wheel  of a car-
riage, which prevents it from being precipi-
tated  to its destruction.
   Salutary as occupation in general is, it is
far from  being so when it consists  almost ex-
clusively in an attention to a man's self,  and
more particularly to his corporeal  sensations
and infirmities. The hypochondriac often de-
stroys his health, by taking too much care of
          27 
406            OCCUPATION.
it. The maker of  a watch will tell you, that
there is no way more  certain of injuring it,
than the  constantly meddling with its machi-
nery. In like manner,  it is  impossible to be
perpetually tampering  with the constitution,
without either  disordering its movements or
impairing the elasticity of its spring.  A vale-
tudinarian is apt to treat himself, as a doating
mother manages her child, whom she ruins
by over-nursing ; whom she fondles and dan-
dles into delicacy and disease.   So solicitous
is she to  protect him  against the inroads of
distemper, that she closes against him nearly
every avenue of health as well as enjoyment.
He is scarcely allowed to take the air, lest he
thould take a cold along with it; and is often
restricted in the free use of his limbs, from
the  apprehension  of accidental fracture or
possible fatigue.
  Lord Chesterfield somewhere observes, that
a gentleman, after having once dressed him-
self with proper care, will think no more about
his dress  during the remainder of the day. In
like manner, after having adjusted his habits
of regimen, according to the  most approved
model,  a wise  man will banish the subject
from his mind.   He  will,  as uniformly as
he  can, adhere to the rules of living which 
              OCCUPATION.            207

he has laid down for himself; but will have
them as little as  possible in his thoughts.
   There  are petit-maitres  with regard to
health as well as dress. Both are  almost con-
stantly employed in examining themselvss; the
one  from an anxiety to know whether every
thing about him,  the  other,  whether every
thing within him, is exactly as it should be.
Each of these characters is, to a  certain de-
gree, an object of pity. But the coxcomb has,
in one respect, the advantage over the hypo-
chondriac ; inasmuch,  as the latter is, in ge-
neral, less satisfied with the state of his inside,
than the former is with the appearance of his
exterior.
   To be always considering " what we should
eat,  and what we should  drink, and where-
withal we should be  clothed,"  in  order  to
avoid the approach of disease, is  the most
likely means of provoking its attack.  A man
who is continually feeling his pulse,  is never
likely to have a good one.   If he swallow his
food from the same motive as he does his phy-
sic, it will neither be enjoyed nor digested  so
well as if he eat in obedience to the dictate  of
an unsophisticated and uncalculating appetite.
The hypochondriac who is in  the habit  of
weighing his meals, will generally  find that 
208
OCCUPATION.
they lie heavy on his stomach.   If he take a
walk or a  ride, with no other view  than to
pick up health, he will seldom meet with it
on the road.   If lie enter into company, not
from any social sympathy or relish for inter-
change of  thought, but merely because com-
pany is prescribed for his disease, he will only
be  more deeply depressed by that cheerful-
ness in which he cannot compel himself to par-
ticipate ; and will gladly relapse into  his dar-
ling solitude, where he  may indulge his me-
lancholy without  risk of interruption or dis-
turbance.   "The countenance of a friend
doeth  good like a medicine," but not if we
look upon  it merely with a view to its medi-
cinal operation.
  The constitutional or inveterate hypochon-
driac is apt to view every  thing only in the
relation which it may bear to his malady.  In
the rich and diversified  store-house of nature
he  sees merely a vast  laboratory of poisons
and antidotes.  He is almost daily employed
either in the search after, or in the trial of, re-
medies for a  disease which is often to be cu-
red only by striving to forget it.
  But even if such a plan of life were really
calculated  to lengthen  the  catalogue of our
days, it would  still be  equally wretched and 
                OCCUPATION.             209

degrading te the  dignity of our nature.   No-
thing, surely, can be more idle and absurd than
to waste the whole of our being in endeavours
to preserve it; to neglect the purposes, in or-
der to protract the period, of our existence.

           i  Propter vitam, vivendi perdere causas.
                                      Juvenal.
FINIS.
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