Thoughts on health and some of its conditions

Preface

I HOPE these few papers, though of necessity they do but touch the outskirts of the subjects they refer to, may have the one merit of increasing the reader’s desire to be better acquainted with them.

I have endeavoured to trace the connection of each special subject with universal laws ; and to show it as an instance of an order wider than itself. But I wish in this respect I had done something worthier : I mean something worthier of those glimpses and foreshadowings of human and spiritual meaning which science, though she gave promise of them from her birth, yet now presents in such increasing multitude and brightness. I am quite sure my own feeling in this respect represents that of thousands ; that we seem, when we study nature as science shows her, as if we caught the echo of some distant music — so faint sometimes that we can hardly be sure whether it be not our own fancy merely, and yet so much

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beyond anything our fancy could have suggested, and, withal, coming so persistently, floating in from every side, shaping itself ever anew, yet in every new form recalling the same strain, that we cannot refuse the glad persuasion that it is a real music which we hear. When shall we hear it fully ?

Not so very long, I think. Because already all other voices begin to hush themselves and listen. The world listens : not because it may seem indifferent, is indifference in its heart. Amid the turmoil of its business and its strifes, any one who notes it with an eye not too self-engrossed for sympathy, sees that the world listens. It stands expectant, and its eyes are fixed on science. “ We have waited long, have believed often, have often been deceived, but we have one hope yet left, O men of science,” it says, “and that is in you. For knowledge we have asked as for bread, and many have given us stones ; for solid facts to build our life upon, and many dreamers have beguiled us with their visions. O searchers out of all things, is it for you that we have waited ? ”

As I believe, it is for them. How can it be otherwise. When a man’s heart speaks most truly to him, does it not say, “ Oh that I were as Nature.” When he looks around him, if lie dares to wish at all, what

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is it lie can wish but that the fatal discord between man and Nature were resolved ? That fateful holder of the key of order that is not restraint ; of peace that carries passion in its bosom ; of rectitude that needs no law ; bears she not in her charmed hands the secret also of his rectitude and peace ? Will not those who love her, and devote their lives to her, tell us what it is ?

If knowledge puffed them up with pride they would not ; if their hard-earned triumphs so filled their souls that they thought nothing was withheld from them. Then we know we should wait in vain. But it is not so. The surest proof of coming knowledge has been given us in the words which own its absence. On all hands from the men who study nature we hear one confession : “We do not know : — what nature is we have not found, and shall not find.” But in those very words we recognize her voice. Our guides have found her, for she speaks in them. They have found her, and they know her not ; for she is better than they thought. Seeking assurance of knowledge, they have found consciousness of ignorance ; seeking a substance away from them and stranger to their souls, they have found a Power that is known only in its action upon them. They have not found what they sought, indeed ; but

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when did ignorance ever foreknow what would reward her search ? A Power known in action, and in action only, this do our guides announce to us : a Power whose self they have sought and find it not, are sure they never will find. — Would to God they could say the same of man.

Is nature selfless ? Is this what they tell us ? They have found the secret of the universe ; our secret. It is enough. There is the passion which is rocked in perfect peace ; the freedom which no law restrains, yet which fulfils all law ; the order which unreason cannot break. O image of Divinity, type and model of all perfectness, a worthy interpreter you have found at last. Your riddle has been guessed, your lesson read, your promise enrolled clear within our hearts. Man shall follow in your footsteps, shall attain your joy : he shall cast out the self.

London , Novembe r, 1870.

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. Health i

II. Food— What it is 22

Chapter I. Health

A DEAF and dumb boy being asked what health was, replied, “ It is pleasant life.” And whether or not the enforced concentration of his thoughts gave them a special clearness, it is difficult to see what other answer could have come much nearer the truth. P"or a pleasant life is a different thing from a life with many pleasures : of these, if health be wanting, there is not one that may not become the instrument of pain, palling upon a deadened sensibility, or jarring on over-excited nerves. For pleasant life, health is at least the first condition.

And not for pleasant life only, but often for useful or amiable life. How much of the social

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unhappiness of men arises from deranged system or disordered brain, perhaps we shall never know until that paradise to which all such things were strangers is restored ; but we know that a large part of our social grievances has its root in nothing else. How to keep ourselves vigorous in mind and body, so as to be always fit for work and ready for enjoyment— to preserve unbroken that keen sense of life which makes it a luxury to draw our breath, that exhilarating feeling of self-command which makes toil a pleasure, and is itself a sure augury of success, is a problem we should all be glad to solve. Without going so far as the physician who maintained that a man’s theological opinions depended on the state of his liver, we yet know very well how our feelings vary with our bodily condition, how dismal the world looks during a fit of indigestion, and what a host of evils disappear as the abused stomach regains its tone. Even in a money point of view, to be always “ in condition ” would be equal, in the case of most men, to a considerable addition to their fortunes ; work would go twice as far, and quarrels would be but half as frequent. I have heard it argued, indeed, that lawyers have quite as large an interest in the illhealth of mankind as doctors.

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But health, like virtue, seems more easy to admire

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than to achieve. Is it not, indeed, the virtue of the body, and only to be attained by compliance with a system of rigid rules, and a life of scrupulous exactitude ? No. Its preservation involves no such sacrifice, cannot be purchased, indeed, at any such price.

A certain father of the Church said to one who asked of him rules for living, “ Love, and then do what you like.” So it might almost be said to any one inquiring howto be healthy. “Understand, and then do what you like.” It is possible, indeed, for men in certain states of society to fulfil most of the laws of health — which are very simple — without any knowledge on the subject. Circumstances enforce upon them fresh air, exercise, natural rest, temperance, quietude of mind. But under any conditions these cases are not numerous, and in these days they are very few indeed. The time for an unconscious fulfilment of the laws of health is practically past. We must either know or suffer. For not a few of the very refinements and advantages of modern life have a direct tendency to interfere with the conditions necessary to health, unless precautions are taken : gas, for example, especially as introduced into dwelling-houses ; papered rooms, of which the walls are thick with arsenic ; even the system of

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drainage itself. Things that subserve our comfort or our pleasure may unsuspectedly undermine our well-being, unless we know the principles on which it depends, and are ever ready to apply them to circumstances as they arise.

Fortunately, as has been said, the principles of health are very simple. As there are few things which are better worth knowing, so there are very few which it is easier to know. And this is especially the case if they are looked at in a common-sense way, and traced to their grounds. That air, exercise, plenty of good food, but not too much, sufficient sleep, but without sloth, temperance, cleanliness, freedom from anxiety, are the great means of health, is known to almost all. But this is not enough, unless the reason be also known. Without that, no hearty application even of remembered truths can be expected, and the simplest principles will be in perpetual danger of being forgotten. Besides, under press of business, or temptations from pleasure, there arises a constant tendency to question facts which are known only empirically, or accepted only on authority. We doubt whether the principle is quite certain, or the practice so very necessary. To make them of their full value to us we ought to know the reason of the laws of health.

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Happily this is for the most part quite within our power. The root which the main principles of Hygiene possess in nature, and the manner in which they exemplify the operation of universal laws, are capable of an exhibition as beautiful and satisfactory as the principles themselves are practically important. But we must begin far enough back.

It is curious to reflect how quietly we take our life ; how much a matter of course it seems to us that we have all the faculties we possess — the capacity of motion, of feeling, of thought, of executing our designs. All these things we do so naturally, as it were so spontaneously, and by our own immediate power, that the elaborate mechanism by which they are accomplished quite escapes our thoughts. In these days, when a certain knowledge of the animal structure is so widely spread, we can all of us enter somewhat into the feelings of astonishment and admiration which filled the minds of the first anatomists, as the wondrous structure revealed itself in ever-increasing complexity and beauty to their gaze. Of these feelings, indeed, physiology still bears, almost too strongly, the impress. The wonder and admiration have been so great, as to keep too much in check the search after causes. But let us

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ask ourselves, as they must have done (though less able than we are to give more than a very general answer to the question), what is the meaning of this vast apparatus of muscle, nerve, and gland ? Why was this artful mechanism planned, this liberal profusion of contrivances prepared ? The reply is obvious — this perfectly appointed body, which we each inhabit, is the proof that we are not the possessors of that independent power of which we seem so conscious. The investigation of our own structure teaches us that we truly employ forces from without, when we seem to act by the mere exertion of our will. The living frame is a machine for placing under our control, and at our use, the powers of nature. So far as our body is concerned, we live and act by them.

The laws of health, therefore, are simply the laws of nature. This is the principle on which the intelligent management of the body rests. Our powers, being nature’s powers, are subjected to the same conditions which pervade the rest of the world.

It follows, also, that in order to understand the requisites for health, we must not confine our study to life alone. The conditions on which it depends are in some respects expressed more simply, and may be more easily read, in familiar objects around

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us, than in the hidden and complex mechanism within. In that which we observe without, we may discover oftentimes what seems like an unravelling of the close-woven web of life.

Nature is full of activity. Every particle of dust is the seat of subtle powers. From the gravity which binds worlds together, to the cohesive force which moulds the crystal, there exists, throughout, an unbroken chain of action. Forces are operating everywhere, either in constant energy or intermittent violence, by silent insensible influences, such as those by which light engraves a picture, though our eyes may not discern it, on every object upon which it falls, or in sudden outbursts, like the volcano or the storm. The earth is a magnet ; electric streams circulate continually across its surface ; by marvellous affinities its constituent elements call to each other and they come. Given the problem, therefore, to provide for man, from the dust of the earth, a body full of activity, dowered with capability to respond to nature’s infinite appeal, and fit to be the organ of his will, and we see that the means are at hand. Here is matter, rich to overflowing with forces ready to be placed at his command. How should the body then be made ? of all this vast array of powers, which should be chosen for man’s service ?

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It were hard to have answered, ere the work was done ; but we know which was chosen, and can recognize in some degree the wisdom which the choice reveals. The force of chemical affinity was raised to this dignity, to be the minister of man ; it is made the agent in the realization of his purposes, the fulfiller of his will. For the power of the body arises simply from the chemical changes which take place within it ; its life consists in the presence of the conditions which those chemical changes demand ; and its health is in the perfectness with which those conditions are maintained, and those changes carried on and regulated.

At once, then, we have the key to the laws of health. They are all summed up in this : — to provide for the due maintenance, and the unhindered performance, of the chemical changes on which the activity of the body depends. To do that is to insure, so far as it is in our power, the perfection of our instrument ; to fail in it is to incur inevitable loss. Life has no exemptions, is treated with no favour. We can no more live with the conditions of chemical change within our bodies wanting or deranged, than we can fire a cannon with damp gunpowder, or with none.

I have said we can discern reasons why chemical

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affinity was chosen as the physical power for man to wield. We can see its eminent and perfect adaptation to that purpose. It is true, indeed, that all arguments of this kind have something of a vicious circle about them. They amount to little more, at last, than that effects follow from reasonable causes, and do not take place in a manner irrational or impossible. Yet it is both pleasant and profitable to trace such relations, and the moral value of the process may outweigh its logical defects. Premising, then, that we do not know, as yet, what chemical affinity is, and have very few hints as to the causes on which it may depend — * premising this, it is evident that matter with chemical tendencies, such as we know it to possess, is a material exquisitely adapted to constitute a living body. What is wanted in such a body ? The chief demands are, clearly, that it should be instinct throughout with a capacity for moving ; that it should be quick to

Very few ; but not quite none. We see “ chemical affinity ” evidently imparted to certain bodies by the action of various forces light and electricity, for instance. The conversion of the chemically passive common form of oxygen into the chemically active ozone, by subjecting the former to electric shocks, is a notable instance. Another is the case of chlorine and hydrogen, which when mixed in the dark remain separate, but after light has fallen on them for a time unite into hydrochloric acid. But in tracing the part played by chemical affinity in life, we take it up as existing in nature, without asking its origin.

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respond to a stimulus, from whatever source applied, whether external or internal ; that, while retaining its form and structure unimpaired, it should be capable of manifesting force in any variety of modes, so that, within the bounds of the reasonable desires of man, the will should but need to speak, and the act should follow ; and lastly, that it should have power of selfmaintenance and repair.

All these things are provided for in the chemical affinities of matter. Elements endowed with this power, when brought into relation with each other, unite with the manifestation of a force which is perfectly enormous in proportion to their bulk. Oxygen and hydrogen, mixed together, and subjected to an electric spark, unite in water with a loud explosion ; and Professor Faraday has shown that the force which holds together a single drop of water is equivalent to that of a powerful flash of lightning. The explosive gases which cause such fearful calamities in our coal-mines exhibit the power of chemical affinity. Engineers have recourse to it whenever they wish to bring to bear the greatest possible amount of force. But it can also be as gentle as it is mighty, and not least mighty when it is most gentle. It reminds us, though only to show how poorly man’s work compares with nature, of the steam hammer crushing iron

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1 1 bars one minute, and cracking nuts the next. Advancing with noiseless step, chemical affinity eats away the stone of our public buildings, and by like action on the mountain rock, it changes the surface of the earth. It is mighty — and weak, yet insuperable in its weakness ; it is all-pervading, present in every place, and penetrating into the inmost recesses of every body. It may be brought into play by the slightest stimulus, as in fulminating powders which the touch of a feather will explode, or may remain passive amid incessant change.

A body constructed out of elements thus endowed, is evidently suited to become the organ of a being .with wants and desires such as man’s. There is provision alike for the exertion of that sudden force which our more energetic actions demand, and for the gentle and continuous processes of secretion or of growth. It is only necessary that these powers should be taken due advantage of. And in the living body this is done ; the elements are brought together in that state in which their powers arc active, and available for use. They are grouped in modes in which their affinities are unsatisfied, so that they tend to combine afresh. It is no otherwise than as the sportsman charges his gun with elements which tend to recombine, and which can

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satisfy their affinities only in the formation of new compounds. Such elements, whether within the body or out of it, will give forth their force upon demand.

And chemical affinity is the more perfect as the instrument of life, inasmuch as it has its seat in every particle. Thus the body is not a passive mechanism wielded by forces from without, but one active in itself, and in every part. It is like an army, which also is a whole, or unit, animated by one will, but each constituent “atom” of which is a living agent, and joins his individual forces to the rest. This it is which in great part causes the striking contrast between the living organism and any mechanical contrivance. The latter is a passive mass, containing, or moved by, extraneous agencies ; the former is active throughout, and its entire substance contributes to its force.

But a limited use only of chemical power is made for the purposes of life. By no means is the whole range of the affinities which connect the various elements brought into play. The activity of the body is made to depend, so far as we can yet see, mainly upon one process, the union of oxygen with its substance. An animal, physically considered, is mainly a great oxidizing apparatus. By the incessant performance of this process the living frame

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becomes full of power, which is manifested in the various modes familiar to our experience. Thus, to think rightly of organic bodies, they should be regarded rather from the point of view of their action than of their substance ; rather as processes than as things. “ The flame of life,” we say, and with a wonderful truthfulness ; there is hardly one point in relation to the bodily life which the flame of a lamp does not illustrate. For what is such a flame? Does it not consist in — is it not wholly constituted by — the union of oxygen with the oil ? It is an action rather than a thing. Definite as is its form, it is not a “ substance,” but a state of burning. Its particles are never the same for two successive moments ; the carbon and hydrogen which make up the oil pass into it, undergo a change (giving off therein their latent force), and pass off again. The flame is a permanent condition of continually changing materials. In this it is wonderfully like ourselves — I mean like the bodies in which we dwell. They also are permanent conditions merely, impressed on ever - changingmaterials. We live and act in a constant burnine. The materials we consume as food, passing into us, undergo a change (giving off therein their latent force), and again pass off. The matter has come and gone, the body remains. That is a state, an active

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state, a process carried on within fixed limits, and in a definite form — it is a flame.

Some other natural objects place the same conception before us in a form still more simple. I never see one of those spiral pillars of dust which, like a mimic simoon, rush along the road upon a windy day, without thinking, “ There is an image of life.” Dust and a breath ! Observe how the apparent “ pillar ” is but a condition, an active condition, of the particles of dust, and those particles continually changing. The form depends upon the incessant movement. The heavy sand floats on the impalpable air while it partakes its motion ; let that cease and it falls. So the dull clods of the field, smitten by force, take wings and soar into life, partake for a time its rapid course, and then, the force exhausted, fall back into their former state. A whirl, a flux, maintained by forces from without, and ceasing when they are withdrawn ; — that is our life.

Nor should we object to illustrations such as these of sand-pillars or of flames, that they are of simple form and yielding substance, or that they involve a rapid, unintermittent, and, as it were, violent action to maintain them. Forms as simple are seen in the first grades of vegetable or of animal life ; forms more simple, indeed, mere cells or shapeless masses, of which we

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can only say, they live. Many conditions have conspired to mould the frame of the more developed races. Nor does the firmer texture of the living organism than of the flame, imply a less degree of transience in the one than in the other. Gases and a little solid matter in a state of oxidation constitute the flame ; gases and a little solid matter in a state of oxidation constitute the body. The mode only is different : the flame is gaseous, the body semi-solid ; the one is to the other as vapour is to water. And if we contrast the fierceness of the flame with the mild and almost insensible processes of life, we must remember that we cannot be sure there is any such difference as there appears to be. Life may be like a flame diffused, and each particular combination as energetic in the most delicate structure of the body as in the sevenfold heated furnace. One thins- is

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certain, the force resulting is as great.

But there arises a question which must be discussed before we can go any farther — What is the difference between the living and the dead body? Chemical actions take place in the latter ; it is, indeed, given over to the control of the chemical forces, and perishes by their operation. How is this, if its life consists in the use of the chemical powers ?

There is apparently separated from the body, i6

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when it dies, something which it previously possessed ; and this is, perhaps, the chief foundation of the idea that has been entertained of life, as something existing apart from the other physical powers, and capable of being added to, or withdrawn from, an organism, without any other immediate change. Rut if we look more closely into the facts, we see that the appearance tends to deceive us here. The body is not dead when, as we say, the breath leaves it. It ceases, indeed, to be the instrument of the soul, but that is only because its integrity, as a mechanism of mutually related parts, is destroyed. It is dead as the body of a man, not dead in itself. The life is in each portion still, more or less completely ; as is proved by the fact that, for a time, the beard or nails will grow, the limbs move, and the glands secrete. But the offices which the various organs perform can no more be carried out in concert, either through damage inflicted upon one, or by a general weakening of all ; and accordingly the actions necessary to maintain the life of the whole cease to be effected. The body first breaks down as a machine, and then only dies as a body. After its individual or active life has ceased, by derangement of the requisite adjustments, the life that pervades every part gradually wears out and ceases for want of support and

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renewal.* The function of each part is needed for the maintenance of ail ; and when one utterly fails, and the sooner in proportion as its office is of more essential use, all gradually decay. Thus, if the respiration be diminished beyond a certain point by disease within the lungs, or the heart become unable to maintain the circulation, the body ceases at last to have force sufficient to keep up the necessary actions of the other organs, and these actions cease. The frame lies motionless and insensible, and decay invades it unresisted. It is thus life seems suddenly to leave the body. The actions of which a living organism is the seat form a continuous chain ; like a circle, they begin at every point ; each dependent upon every other. The external functions of moving and the like, by which the animal provides its sustenance, are maintained by the minute chemical changes which take place within ; these latter changes are kept up only by means of the external functions, which supply the food or air, or ensure other requisite changes of condition.

* The former of these is termed the animal life , and consists in the functions by which the creature is related to the external world, and especially in all that comes within the power of its will : the latter is termed the organic life , and consists of minute changes taking place within the organism. At the instant of death the animal life only ceases.

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We come back, then, to our fundamental conception of the animal body ; that it is essentially a state of action — of chemical change — in particles of matter, dependent chiefly on the union with them of the oxygen of the air. From this one idea we can trace the use and the necessity of all the chief functions on which life depends. Food must be taken, regularly and in certain variable quantities, to afford the materials in which this change may go on. And the food must be mainly of a certain kind ; it must consist of substances with which oxygen has a tendency to unite, that is, of substances which are prone to decompose. Matters with which oxygen is already combined to its full extent, or which do not readily combine with that element, are indeed necessary as food, but their part, though essential, is subordinate. The mass of the food must consist of organic, that is, of animal or vegetable substance.

Again, air must be inhaled ; and this process must be constant. The absolute necessity of a continuous supply of air, though that of food may be taken at intervals, or even interrupted for considerable periods, is easily explained. If those actions within the body which the oxygen maintains, once come to an end (except, perhaps, under some very exceptional conditions), the life is gone. The chain,