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sometimes sudden death,-obviously because the small amount of force thus expended, is not renewed by the nutritive process. It is generally known that violent exercise diminishes, and sometimes arrests the process of digestion, by diverting arterial blood from the stomach to the voluntary muscles; and that life is often destroyed suddenly by a large draught of cold water, which abstracts the small remainder of caloric from the capillaries of the stomach, and paralyzes the action of the heart. For the same reason, digestion is always impaired when the stomach is weak, and often entirely arrested for some time, by drinking cold fluids, which are a very frequent exciting cause of flatulence, colic, cardialgia, and spasms, which are more promptly relieved by hot drinks, and the application of external warmth, than by any other means.

A correct knowledge of the manner in which animal heat is expended by exercise, will enable us to explain why it is that when greatly fatigued, health is often destroyed by immersion in the cold

the expense of the brain, which is generally small among pedestrians, wrestlers, boxers, country labourers, and all individuals who take much exercise, compared with what it is in men employed in intellectual pursuits, and who lead a less active life. The true method of securing the highest degrees of physical, intellectual, and moral excellence, is to exercise all the organs within the limits of pleasurable excitement, and without producing fatigue, which is incipient disease, and should therefore be carefully avoided.

TOO MUCH EXERCISE.

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bath, which suddenly reduces the body below the natural standard, paralyzes the lungs, diminishes respiration, and thus lays the foundation of pneumonia, phthisis, or some other fatal malady, if not prevented by immediate recourse to the warm bath, or the application of dry heat, until the circulation is perfectly restored.* Nor is there a more frequent predisposing cause of fever, dysentery, cholera, diarrhæa, and congestion of the liver, than exposure to rain, fogs, damp night air, or even a moderately cool draft of air, when fatigued by over exertion, especially in hot climates, where the smaller amount of caloric obtained by respiration is much sooner expended by exercise than in the higher latitudes; so that a very slight exposure brings on a chill, and torpor of the internal organs.

The exhaustion of animal heat by violent exer

* I knew a case of incurable hemiplegia brought on a vigorous man in the prime of life, by walking ninety miles, (from London to Birmingham,) in three successive days. And it is well known to medical men, that when the muscles have been weakened by over exertion, they are more liable to rheumatic inflammation than at other times,-that when the loins have been overstrained, exposure to a slight cold will bring on lumbago. Nor is it possible that rheumatism or any other inflammation can exist, so long as there is a free circulation of good arterial blood through the capillaries of the muscles and other tissues. But it is consoling to know by experience, that in recent cases of rheumatism, the weakness of the capillaries may be very soon overcome by the repeated employment of hot applications, aided by gentle frictions.

cise, has been long practically recognized by sportsmen, who are careful to cover the racehorse with a warm garment immediately after he reaches the goal, with a view to prevent his taking cold. Veterinarians are also aware, that horses are far more liable to tetanus from exposure to cold, when fatigued by violent exertion, than at any other time; and that what is called a founder, is generally brought on by drinking too much cold water, (which is also the cause of colic,) when they have been over exercised.

Many persons imagine,-and I am not sure that even medical men are wholly free from the same error, that the danger from exposure to cold after fatigue, is owing to what they call an over heated state of the body. But there is not the slightest danger of taking cold when the body is over heated by the warm bath, as proved by the Russians, who have found that it enables them to endure cold for a much longer time than they otherwise could; and that after coming out of the vapour bath, the lower orders often roll themselves in the snow with impunity. The fact is, that whenever the circulation is languid, respiration is augmented by the warm bath, which increases the action of the heart, and causes a larger amount of blood to pass through the lungs in a given time, as explained in the preceding chapters of this work.

CHAPTER II.

On Aliments.

"In cold regions, more food is necessary to enable the animal to resist the rigours of climate, and a greater degree of stimulation is requisite for the evolution of heat, than would be endured in the equatorial latitudes: while the inhabitants of warm climates are instinctively led to the choice of vegetable food; because it stimulates in a smaller degree, and is attended with a smaller evolution of animal heat.” SIR CH. MORGAN.

THE object of food in the animal economy is to supply materials for supporting that incessant process of combustion in the lungs, by which the temperature and vitality of the body are maintained, and its composition renewed. Nor can there be a rational doubt, that a complete knowledge of all the changes which it undergoes while passing through the system, would explain nearly everything hitherto mysterious in the operations of life. For it involves the whole theory of respiration, sanguification, secretion, and nutrition, by which the perpetual waste of all the organs is repaired.

From the earliest periods of history down to the present time, it has been a question among philosophers, whether animal or vegetable food

is better calculated to promote health, strength, beauty, long life, and the highest developement of the intellectual and moral faculties. But we have already seen that the aliment of nations, like their clothing, habitations, manners, customs, social economy, complexion, and general organization, have been determined chiefly by climate and geographical position, to which the institutions of lawgivers and founders of religious creeds, have been, to a greater or less extent, accommodated. And it will be found, that in every part of the world, nature has supplied in greatest abundance those descriptions of food best suited to the well being of its inhabitants.

For example, the tropical regions abound with rice, yams, dates, sugar cane, and an exhaustless variety of fruits; but owing to a deficiency of the more nutritive species of grass and grain, they are less adapted to the multiplication of domestic animals than temperate climates, which abound with wheat, rye, barley, oats, potatoes, rich grasses, the olive and vine, with a great variety of fruits and vegetables: while the polar regions afford neither grass, grain, nor fruits, and no vegetable aliment excepting a few stinted mosses, but abound with reindeer, bears, seals, the walrus, and other cetacea. It is therefore evident, that nature has provided a large predominance of vegetable food in the torrid zone, of animal food in the frigid zone, and a due mixture of both in the intermediate latitudes,-con

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