FOR YOUTH, MANHOOD, AND OLD AGE. INCLUDING Maxims, Moral and Facetious; FOR THE PREVENTION OF DISEASE, AND THE ATTAINMENT OF A Long and Vigorous Life. BY AN OLD PHYSICIAN. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY EFFINGHAM WILSON, ROYAL EXCHANGE. MDCCCXXX. PREFATORY REMARKS. "HEALTH WITHOUT PHYSIC!-HEALTH WITHOUT PHYSIC!—the man's surely mad! who can be well without doctor's stuff? impossible! 'Tis some quack or other puffing off his nostrums." This is the language, or something like it, which it is expected will be growled out and mumbled over, by the sceptical and never to be satisfied many, when they first fix their eyes on the title of this little book. True! we are puffing off a nostrum-such a nostrum, forsooth, as is in every man's power to purchase without putting his hand in his pocket. But where is it? it may be as peevishly asked: the answer is, briefly, read my book, that is to say, this book, and you will find it. Follow the dictates of reason, and Nature, that nevererring guide. "Throw physic to the dogs," unless you be actually ill; benefit by the experience of others, and learn to live and supply nature's wants without pampering the appetite to the injury of the constitution. To live long, people must live well, that is, not upon the fat of the land, but rather upon the wholesome products, animal and vegetable, which the land affords, properly prepared and cooked. Temperance, the mother of virtues, and so essential to happiness, among the panacea to which we allude, ought to be cherished, not only for the sake of the good it does the mind, but it should equally be practised with care for the advantages which it procures to the body; it being that alone which preserves the latter in health, and cures it of the diseases with which its oppositeintemperance-afflicts it. Now, gentle readers, as temperance, the inseparable companion of well-regulated minds, is the nostrum which stands least in need of the puff direct, or oblique, because it is a genuine article, it need only be asked, that, if we do not observe it, with whom ought we to be angry? How can we be happy, if we suffer acute pains-if we are tormented with the gout, or the asthma; if our stomach cease to perform its offices; if our legs, swelled and weak, refuse to support or carry us along? And yet all these, and many other evils, are the certain consequences of intemperance. He who purchases the pleasures of the bottle, at the expence of the most acute pains, pays very dear |