DR. JAMES JOHNSON'S ECONOMY OF HEALTH.

DIvIPING human life into ten septennial periods, Dr. JOHNSON appears to have proposed to examine the physiological characte- ristics by which all the epochs are naturally distinguished, and the social influences, second only to natural organization, that operate upon them ; and thence to deduce fitting rules For the physical and moral management of ourselves, and the education of our chil- dren, during each "phase of human existence." Had the execu- tion of the plan been equal to the design, the volume would have formed an invaluable companion for life. As it is, the Economy of Health is a very amusing book ; containing a variety of sensible remarks and much good advice, interspersed with many quaint digressions on remotely-connected subjects ; some striking facts, picked up in the course of a wide acquaintance with mankind in many countries ; and proofs of the Doctor's reading amongst the poets, in the shape of frequent quotations. The advice, however, is sometimes too general to admit of individual application ; or it requires greater means and appliances than the generality of mankind can command, or a completer control over themselves in minute observances than most of us will be found to possess. The fact is, too, that hardening processes will often be found ineffective or mischievous with the delicate and the invalid; whilst with those who are strong enough to persist in their practice, it is to be suspected that a good constitution is entitled to much of the credit that is bestowed upon certain formalities. The two most valuable sections of the volume are incidental; one relating to a new and prevalent disease, the other to the effects of travel in subduing or preventing it, as well as descrip- tive of the best modes of travelling. According to Dr. JOHNSON, diseases are contingent upon times ; and the much-ridiculed "fashion in physic," is merely a proof that certain modes of life induce certain disorders, or aggravate those of a universal charac- ter. The ancients were afflicted with complaints unknown to us, and were ignorant of many scourges that have since devastated the world. At present many frightful disorders are rare in Eng- land, or comparatively mild ; but it may perhaps admit of doubt whether we are altogether such gainers by the change, as the linked tortures long drawn out" of what our author terms the PATHO-PROTEIAN MALADY, may outweigh in the minds of many the severe but brief pains of an acute disease. His account of the character, origin, and causes of this disorder, as well as his de- scription of its popular pathology, is a piece of quaint but power- ful eloquence, mingled with touches of dry humour. The whole is far beyond our purpose to quote; but we will endeavour to take some passages from it, which will convey an idea of the author's views of its nature, and at the same time furnish specimens of his sty le.

FATI1O-PR0TEIAN MALADY.

It is a monster-malady of comparatively recent origin. No name, no de- scription of it is found in the records of antiquity, or even of the middle ages. It is deal ly the offspring of civilization and refinement, of sedentary habits and intellectual culture, of physical deterioration and mental perturbation, uf ex- citement and exhaustion, of the friction (if I am allowed such a term) of mind on matter and of matter on mind. It is not the progeny of intemperance, for our forefathers were more intemperate than we are. It is not the product of effeminacy, as far as indulgence in pleasure or idleness is concerned; for the present race is more worn down by labour and care than by ease and dissipation. Though millions have felt it, no one can describe it ; though thousands have _studied it, no one has been able to frame fur it an accurate definition. And no

wonder. It is a Proteus, which assumes the form and usurps tie attributes of almost every malady, mental and corporeal, that has scourged the human race since the creation of the world. But this is not all. It disdains the character of being merely an imitator. It takes on shapes and attitudes that have no prototypes in human afflictions. Nor need this excite surprise. We have im • ported, through the medium of our boundless colonization, the constitutions and maladies of the East and of the West, and incorporated them with those of our own. Every day and hour the experienced eye will detect in the streets of London the Hindoo features, blanched by our skies of their ochery complexion ; the Negro nose and lips, deprived, by the same agents, of their original com- panions, the Ethiopian hue and woolly locks. These, however, would have been of little consequence, had we not imported with them the bile and the belly- ache, the Ilindostanee liver and the Caribbean spleen, the phlegm of the North

and the choler of the South. • • • • This disease has been attributed to the liver, the stomach, the spleen, the brain, the spinal marrow, the nerves, the colon, &c. ; each physician drawing the Proteian fiend in the shape and hue which it most frequently assumed under his own observance. (fence its various designations. Indigestion, hepatitis, dyspepsia, nervous irritability, bilious disorder, hypochondriasis, &c. &e. have, each in its turn, been the name affixed to the infirmity. It is not difficult to discover the clew to this diversity of opinion. The Patho•Proteian affliction is not, perhaps, in strict language, an entity—a single disease sent down from heaven, or springing from the bowels of the earth ; but rather a morbid con- stitution or disposition, produced by the various moral and physical causes above alluded to, and moulding numerous other maladies into its own resemblance. Although the multitudinous causes of this evil must operate in a great variety of ways, yet there are two principal channels through which it flows upon man and woman much more frequently than through any others; namely, the brain and the stomach, but chiefly the former. The moral impressions on the brain and nerves are infinitely more injurious than the physical impressions of fond and drink, however improper, on the stomach. The multifarious relations of man with the world around him, in the present sera of social life, are such as must inevitably keep up a constant source of perturbation, if not irritation ; and this trouble of mind is not solely, or even chiefly, expended on the organ of the mind, viz. the brain and its appendages, the nerves; but upon the organs of the body 'most intimately associated with the brain—namely, the digestive organs, including the stomach, liver, and bowels.

Let us exemplify this. A man receives a letter communicating a piece of astounding intelligence—great loss of property, or death of a child, wife or parent. The mind, the brain, the nervous system, are all agitated and :lies turbed. But the evil does not rest here. The organs not immediately under the will, or (Fleetly connected with the intellectual portion of -our frame—the organs of digestion, circulation, nutrition, &c.—are all consecutively disturbed, and their functions disordered. These corporeal maladies are those which naturally a•tract most the sufferer's attention. He seldom comprehends or even suspects the nature and agency of the moral cause. Ile flies to physic, and it may very easily be conceived that he generally flies to it in vain.

But it will probably be remarked, that great events and disasters befall only a few, comparatively speaking, and those not often. This is true. But the multiplicity and frequency of minor evils are far more than equivalent to the intensity and rarity of the greater ones.

The causes of this malady Dr. JOHNSON marshals under four heads,—" anxiety of mind, intensity of thought, sedentary avo-

cations, and plenary indulgence;" all tending to weaken the body and induce irritability • " and morbid or inordinate irritability, susceptibility, or sensibility, is the distinctive characteristic of the wide-spread malady under consideration." It has been seen already that the Doctor traces the remote origin of the disease to a con- stant wear and tear of the brain, arising from what the author of

England and America calls the " uneasiness" of society. The manner in which the brain acts upon the stomach, and the stomach reacts upon the other organs, may be partly seen in the following extracts.

It is well known to every physiologist, that the great internal organs, the heart, liver, stomach, &c. perform their vital functions independent of the will, being supplied by the ganglionic nerves, a class entirely distinct from those emanating from the brain and spine, which are under the guidance of the mind. These ganglionic organs not only refuse to tell us how they perform their ope- rations in their hidden laboratories, but when they are at work. Thus, in a state of health, we have no conscious sensations from the vital functions of the circulation, respiration, digestion, assimilation' secretion, &c. The heart feels the presence of the blood, but keeps that feeling to itself. The lungs feel the influence of atmospheric air, but give the mind no intimation of such feeling The stomach is alive to the presence of food, and performs the impor- tant task of digestion, but troubles not the intellect with any intimation of its proceedings. And so of all the other internal organs. This is a wise provi- sion of Nature, or rather of Nature's God. But intercourse between the two systems of nerves, the nerves of sense and the nerves of the internal organs, is not absolutely prohibited. They mutually correspond, in a state of health, without our consciousness, and still more, without pain or inconvenience. But let us over-educate, as it were, that is, let us pamper the digestive organs, for example, by unnatural stimulation; or let these said organs be long and-strongly associated, in sympathy, with excitement of the intellect and its organ, the brain—and what is the consequence? The stomach becomes, as it were, intel- lectualized, that is, denaturalized ; so that its sensibility rises from the organic, or unconscious, to the animal, or conscious state of feeling ! Then it is that the process of digestisn not only becomes cognizable to our senses, but exceed- ingly painful.

When the stomach has thus acquired an additional sense, a sense properly appertaining to a superior organ, the organ of the mind, the owner of that stomach has incurred a penalty which will require months or years for ex- oneration. He has over-educated an organ which would have performed its function much better in its pristine ignorance. *

When the malady- in question has attained a certain extent, the stomach not only reflects back on the organ of the mind a large share of those afflictions which it has sustained from that quarter; but, in consequence of its extensive chain of sympathies with various other organs of its own class, as the liver, kid. nies, bowels, heart—in short, the whole of those organs supplied by the gan- glionic nerves, it weaves a tissue of disorders which no human skill can unravel, It constructs a labyrinth of infirmities through which no clew can guide us ; it fills an Aegean stable with evils, which few rivers, except that of Lethe, can cleanse away. But the action and reaction of the organ of the mind and the great organs of the ganglionic system, one on another, are not the only hostilities carried on in this condition of the constitution. Let it be remembered, that the whole of the alimentary canal, from one extremity to the other, is studded with myriads of glands, whose secretions are under the influence of the nerves distributed to them. Now each minute filament of nerve participates in the general disorder of the great nervous centres, and the secretions of the smallest follicle are thus vitiated, and become the prolific source of new irritations reflected back on the whole nervous system, and ultimately on the mind itself. Passing over the facts connected with the singular case of Mr. M'KERRELL, (a gentleman who, it may be remembered, com- mitted suicide in Regent Street, about twelve months since,) and the further development of the Patho-Proteian monster,—let us state the prevention, and, where cure is possible, the cure. The prescriptions are—brief Exercise, and Temperance ; not tempe- rance only in eating and drinking, for in that we are most of us temperate enough, but in our pleasures and enjoyments, our pas- sions, our desires, and more than all in our ambition. If this tem- perance cannot or will not be practised, then travel is the best palliative : and four skeleton tours are given by the Doctor out of his own note-book, accompanied with pleasant general directions, and descriptions of the effects he has seen them produce. The only objection to these remedies is their difficulty. The universal com- petition of which Dr. JOHNSON speaks, forbids those exposed to it to relax their efforts, except under a penalty to which loss of life is nothing—loss of caste ; whilst it may be questioned whether the habit of mental excitement it occasions, does not produce an intel- lectual craving, that would sooner bear bodily pain than mental torpidity. Then, again, his accounts of the health-bringing effects of travel are only tantalizing prescriptions to those who require it most. What would be pleasanter than a two-months' trip to the Conti- nent, or to the Highlands, to the anxious or overworked intellec tual labourers of this great metropolis? But how could they spare the time? or if they did, how could they find the means to travel in the open air, in the moat effectual way, alternating rides and walks? A physician to the King, happy fellow ! may lounge in his carriage on roads which the reflection of the summer sun makes as hot as the Indies, and then, as he ascends an Alpine eminence, or reaches shade, get out and walk; but those who physic, or feed, or instruct the King's lieges, must travel by those conveyances that stay for no man. Indeed, the Doctor admits that his travelling prescription is only practicable by the rich ; it may, however, be read by all.

In saying that the author's advice was too general, we spoke generally. There are many specific rules; and here are some.

TIME FOlt. MATRIMONY.

The most proper age for entering the holy bands of matrimony has been much discussed, but never settled. I am entitled to my opinion ; and although I cannot here give the grounds on winch it rests, the reader may take it for granted that I could adduce, were this the proper place, a great number of weighty reasons, both moral and physical, for the dogma which I am going to propound. The maxim, then, which I would inculcate is this—that matrimony should not be contracted before the first year of the Fourth Septenniad, on the part of the female, nor before the last year of the same in the case of the male. In other words, the female should be at least twenty-one years of age, and the male twenty-eight years. That there should he seven years difference between the ages of the sexes, at whatever period of life the solemn contract is entered upon, need not be urged, as it is universally admitted. There is a dif- ference of seven years, not in the actual duration of life, in the two sexes, but in the stamina of the constitution, the symmetry of the form, and the linea- ments of the face. The wear and tear of bringing up a family might alone account for this inequality; but there are other causes inherent in the consti- tution, and independent of matrimony or celibacy. In respect to early marriage, as far as it concerns the softer sex, I have to observe that, for every year at which the hymeneal knot is tied below the age of twenty-one, there will be on an average three years of premature decay of the corporeal fabric, .and a considerable abbreviation of the usual range of human existence. It is in vain to point out instances that seem to nullify this calcula- tion. There will be individual exceptions to all general rules. The above will be found a fair average estimate. On the moral consequences of too early marriages, it is not my intention to dilate; though I could adduce many strong arguments against, and very few in favour of the practice. It has been said that "matrimony may have miseries, but celibacy has no pleasures." As far as too early marriage is concerned, the adage ought to run thus—" marriage must have miseries, though celibacy may have no pleasure. The choice of a wife or a husband is rather foreign to my subject, and has occupied much abler pens than mine to little advantage. My own opinion is, that were the whole of the adult population registered as they come of age, and each .person, male and female, drew a name out of the urn, and thus rendered matrimony a complete lottery, the sums total of happiness, misery, or content, would be nearly, if not exactly the same, as upon the present principle of selec- tion. This, at first sight, will appear a most startling proposition; but the closer we examine it, the less extravagant it will be found.

HOW RICH PHYSICIANS MAY TAKE EXERCISE.

There was a time when a gentleman walked, because he could not afford to ride ; and then he was seldom ailing. A period came when be kept his carriage, because he could not afford to walk ; and then he was seldom well. He hit • on a remedy that combined the economy of time with preservation of health. Instead of jumping into the carriage, on leaving a house, he started off at a quick pace, that kept the horses on a trot after him. When well warmed with walking, a little fatigued, or straitened for time, he sprang into the carriage, closed three of the windows, and read till he arrived at the next rendezvous, after which the same process of alternate pedestrian and passive exercise was reiterated. Now this is a combination of the two kinds of exercise which I had proved by experiment, many years previously, to be extremely salutary.

ONE OF TWO CURES FOR HYPOCHONDRIACS.

It is, however, in that extensive class of human afflictions termed nervous, dyspeptic, and hypochondriacal, that a journey to the baths of Pfeffer; offers strong temptations, and very considerable hopes ot amendment. To hypochondriacs especially I would recommend this tour. Let them get sea-sick in the liatavier, niud sick in the Maus, and dyke sickin Holland ; let them then ascend the Rhine, amid all the bustle of ste mers and hotels, and wind through the romantic scenery of that noble river. They may visit the Brunnens of Nassau—the shopocracy of Frankfort—the clean, dull towns of Darmstadt and Carlahrue- the old red Castle of Heidelberg—the fairy land of Baden Baden—the prosper- ous town of Offenburgh—the Black Forest—the Falls of the Rhine—the Lake of Wallenstadt, presenting the most splendid lake scenery in Switzerland—and, lastly, the baths of Platers. Let them be enjoined by their physician to penes trate the gorge of Tamina, and drink and perspire at the source of the waters in the rock, as the sine qua non of cure; let them be conjured to.mount the Galanda, where there is a specific air for removal of low spirits ; and then, if their " blue devils" are not drowned in the Pfeffer% or blown away on the Alps, they had better jump into the Tamina, for their case is hopeless ! After the quotations given from the work, it may be superflu- ous to say that originality is its characteristic. Dr. JoHNSoN may have been occasionally indebted to others for his facts or his thoughts, but he has made them his own by digesting them. The Economy of Health is a faithful reflex of its author's mind, and not a thing of shreds and patches.