not receive more; and that matter must remain in our bodies, and
occasion diseases: but it gives some previous notice of its being
about to be hurtful, by producing certain uneasinesses, slight
indeed at first, such as, with regard to the lungs, is a trifling
sensation, and to the pores of the skin a kind of restlessness,
which is difficult to describe, and few that feel it know the
cause of it. But we may recollect, that sometimes, on waking in
the night, we have, if warmly covered, found it difficult to get
asleep again. We turn often without finding repose in any position.
This figettiness, to use a vulgar expression for want of a better,
is occasioned wholly by an uneasiness in the skin, owing to the
retension of the perspirable matter--the bed-clothes having received
their quantity, and, being saturated, refusing to take any more.
To become sensible of this by an experiment, let a person keep his
position in the bed, but throw off the bed-clothes, and suffer fresh
air to approach the part uncovered of his body; he will then feel
that part suddenly refreshed; for the air will immediately relieve
the skin, by receiving, licking up, and carrying off, the load of
perspirable matter that incommoded it. For every portion of cool air,
that approaches the warm skin, in receiving its part of that vapour,
receives therewith a degree of heat, that rarifies and renders it
lighter, when it will be pushed away, with its burthen, by cooler
and therefore heavier fresh air; which, for a moment, supplies its
place, and then, being likewise changed and warmed, gives way to a
succeeding quantity. This is the order of nature, to prevent animals
being infected by their own perspiration. He will now be sensible of
the difference between the part exposed to the air, and that which,
remaining sunk in the bed, denies the air access: for this part now
manifests its uneasiness more distinctly by the comparison, and the
seat of the uneasiness is more plainly perceived, than when the whole
surface of the body was affected by it.
Here, then, is one great and general cause of unpleasing dreams.
For when the body is uneasy, the mind will be disturbed by it, and
disagreeable ideas of various kinds will, in sleep, be the natural
consequences. The remedies, preventative and curative, follow:
1. By eating moderately (as before advised for health's sake) less
perspirable matter is produced in a given time; hence the bed-clothes
receive it longer before they are saturated; and we may, therefore,
sleep longer, before we are made uneasy by their refusing to receive
any more.
2. By using thinner and more porous bed-clothes, which will suffer
the perspirable matter more easily to pass through them, we are less
incommoded, such being longer tolerable.
3. When you are awakened by this uneasiness, and find you cannot
easily sleep again, get out of bed, beat up and turn your pillow,
shake the bed-clothes well, with at least twenty shakes, then throw
the bed open, and leave it to cool; in the meanwhile, continuing
undrest, walk about your chamber, till your skin has had time to
discharge its load, which it will do sooner as the air may be drier
and colder. When you begin to feel the cold air unpleasant, then
return to your bed, and you will soon fall asleep, and your sleep
will be sweet and pleasant. All the scenes presented to your fancy
will be of the pleasing kind. I am often as agreeably entertained
with them, as by the scenery of an opera. If you happen to be too
indolent to get out of bed, you may, instead of it, lift up your
bed-clothes with one arm and leg, so as to draw in a good deal of
fresh air, and, by letting them fall, force it out again. This,
repeated twenty times, will so clear them of the perspirable matter
they have imbibed, as to permit your sleeping well for some time
afterwards. But this latter method is not equal to the former.
Those who do not love trouble, and can afford to have two beds, will
find great luxury in rising, when they wake in a hot bed, and going
into the cool one. Such shifting of beds would also be of great
service to persons ill of a fever, as it refreshes and frequently
procures sleep. A very large bed, that will admit a removal so
distant from the first situation as to be cool and sweet, may in a
degree answer the same end.
One or two observations more will conclude this little piece. Care
must be taken when you lie down, to dispose your pillow so as to
suit your manner of placing your head, and to be perfectly easy;
then place your limbs so as not to bear inconveniently hard upon one
another, as, for instance, the joints of your ancles: for though a
bad position may at first give but little pain and be hardly noticed,
yet a continuance will render it less tolerable, and the uneasiness
may come on while you are asleep, and disturb your imagination.
These are the rules of the art. But though they will generally prove
effectual in producing the end intended, there is a case in which the
most punctual observance of them will be totally fruitless. I need
not mention the case to you, my dear friend, but my account of the
art would be imperfect without it. The case is, when the person, who
desires to have pleasant dreams, has not taken care to preserve, what
is necessary above all things,
A GOOD CONSCIENCE.
FOOTNOTES:
[186] From the Columbian Magazine, vol. I. p. 64. _Editor._
[187] What physicians call the perspirable matter, is that vapour
which passes off from our bodies, from the lungs, and through the
pores of the skin. The quantity of this is said to be five-eighths of
what we eat.
_Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout[188]._
_Midnight, October 22, 1780._
_Franklin._--Eh! Oh! Eh! What have I done to merit these cruel
sufferings?
_Gout._--Many things; you have ate and drank too freely, and too much
indulged those legs of yours in their indolence.
_Franklin._--Who is it that accuses me?
_Gout._--It is I, even I, the gout.
_Franklin._--What! my enemy in person?
_Gout._--No, not your enemy.
_Franklin._--I repeat it; my enemy: for you would not only torment my
body to death, but ruin my good name: you reproach me as a glutton
and a tipler; now all the world that knows me will allow, that I am
neither the one nor the other.
_Gout._--The world may think as it pleases: it is always very
complaisant to itself, and sometimes to its friends; but I very well
know, that the quantity of meat and drink proper for a man, who takes
a reasonable degree of exercise, would be too much for another, who
never takes any.
_Franklin._--I take--Eh! Oh!--as much exercise--Eh!--as I can, Madam
Gout. You know my sedentary state, and on that account, it would
seem, Madam Gout, as if you might spare me a little, seeing it is
not altogether my own fault.
_Gout._--Not a jot: your rhetoric and your politeness are thrown
away; your apology avails nothing. If your situation in life is a
sedentary one, your amusements, your recreations, at least, should be
active. You ought to walk or ride; or, if the weather prevents that,
play at billiards. But let us examine your course of life. While the
mornings are long, and you have leisure to go abroad, what do you
do? Why, instead of gaining an appetite for breakfast, by salutary
exercise, you amuse yourself with books, pamphlets, or newspapers,
which commonly are not worth the reading. Yet you eat an inordinate
breakfast, four dishes of tea, with cream, and one or two buttered
toasts, with slices of hung beef, which I fancy are not things the
most easily digested. Immediately afterward you sit down to write at
your desk, or converse with persons who apply to you on business.
Thus the time passes till one, without any kind of bodily exercise.
But all this I could pardon, in regard, as you say, to your sedentary
condition. But what is your practice after dinner. Walking in the
beautiful gardens of those friends with whom you have dined would be
the choice of men of sense: yours is to be fixed down to chess, where
you are found engaged for two or three hours! This is your perpetual
recreation, which is the least eligible of any for a sedentary man,
because, instead of accelerating the motion of the fluids, the rigid
attention it requires helps to retard the circulation and obstruct
internal secretions. Wrapt in the speculations of this wretched
game, you destroy your constitution. What can be expected from such
a course of living, but a body replete with stagnant humours, ready
to fall a prey to all kinds of dangerous maladies, if I, the gout,
did not occasionally bring you relief by agitating these humours, and
so purifying or dissipating them. If it was in some nook or alley
in Paris, deprived of walks, that you played awhile at chess after
dinner, this might be excusable, but the same taste prevails with
you in Passey, Auteuil, Montmartre, or Sanoy, places where there are
the finest gardens and walks, a pure air, beautiful women, and most
agreeable and instructive conversation; all which you might enjoy by
frequenting the walks! But these are rejected for this abominable
game of chess. Fie, then, Mr. Franklin! But amidst my instructions, I
had almost forgot to administer my wholsome corrections: so take that
twinge--and that.
_Franklin._--Oh! Eh! Oh!--Ohhh! As much instruction as you please,
Madam Gout, and as many reproaches, but pray, Madam, a truce with
your corrections!
_Gout._--No, sir, no--I will not abate a particle of what is so much
for your good--therefore--
_Franklin._--Oh! Ehhh!--It is not fair to say I take no exercise,
when I do very often, going out to dine, and returning in my carriage.
_Gout._--That of all imaginable exercise is the most slight and
insignificant, if you allude to the motion of a carriage suspended
on springs. By observing the degree of heat obtained by different
kinds of motion we may form an estimate of the quantity of exercise
given by each. Thus, for example, if you turn out to walk in winter
with cold feet, in an hour's time you will be in a glow all over;
ride on horseback, the same effect will scarcely be perceived by
four hours round trotting: but if you loll in a carriage, such as you
have mentioned, you may travel all day, and gladly enter the last
inn to warm your feet by a fire. Flatter yourself then no longer,
that half an hour's airing in your carriage deserves the name of
exercise. Providence has appointed few to roll in carriages, while
he has given to all a pair of legs, which are machines infinitely
more commodious and serviceable. Be grateful, then, and make a proper
use of yours. Would you know, how they forward the circulation of
your fluids, in the very action of transporting you from place to
place? observe when you walk, that all your weight is alternately
thrown from one leg to the other; this occasions a great pressure on
the vessels of the foot, and repels their contents. When relieved,
by the weight being thrown on the other foot, the vessels of the
first are allowed to replenish, and by a return of this weight, this
repulsion again succeeds; thus accelerating the circulation of the
blood. The heat produced in any given time depends on the degree of
this acceleration: the fluids are shaken, the humours attenuated, the
secretions facilitated, and all goes well; the cheeks are ruddy, and
health is established. Behold your fair friend at Auteuil: a lady
who received from bounteous nature more really useful science, than
half a dozen such pretenders to philosophy, as you, have been able to
extract from all your books. When she honours you with a visit, it is
on foot. She walks all hours of the day, and leaves indolence and its
concomitant maladies to be endured by her horses. In this see at once
the preservative of her health and personal charms. But you, when
you go to Auteuil, must have your carriage, though it is no farther
from Passy to Auteuil, than from Auteuil to Passy.
_Franklin._--Your reasonings grow very tiresome.
_Gout._--I stand corrected. I will be silent and continue my office:
take that, and that.
_Franklin._--Oh! Ohh! Talk on, I pray you!
_Gout._--No, no; I have a good number of twinges for you to-night,
and you may be sure of some more to-morrow.
_Franklin._--What, with such a fever! I shall go distracted. Oh! Eh!
Can no one bear it for me?
_Gout._--Ask that of your horses; they have served you faithfully.
_Franklin._--How can you so cruelly sport with my torments?
_Gout._--Sport? I am very serious. I have here a list of your
offences against your own health distinctly written, and can justify
every stroke inflicted on you.
_Franklin._--Read it then.
_Gout._--It is too long a detail; but I will briefly mention some
particulars.
_Franklin._--Proceed--I am all attention.
_Gout._--Do you remember how often you have promised yourself, the
following morning, a walk in the grove of Boulogne, in the garden de
la Muette, or in your own garden, and have violated your promise,
alledging, at one time, it was too cold, at another too warm, too
windy, too moist, or what else you pleased; when in truth it was too
nothing, but your insuperable love of ease?
_Franklin._--That I confess may have happened occasionally, probably
ten times in a year.
_Gout._--Your confession is very far short of the truth; the gross
amount is one hundred and ninety-nine times.
_Franklin._--Is it possible?
_Gout._--So possible that it is fact; you may rely on the accuracy
of my statement. You know Mr. B----'s gardens, and what fine walks
they contain; you know the handsome flight of an hundred steps, which
lead from the terrace above to the lawn below. You have been in the
practice of visiting this amiable family twice a week after dinner,
and as it is a maxim of your own, that "a man may take as much
exercise in walking a mile up and down stairs, as in ten on level
ground," what an opportunity was here for you to have had exercise in
both these ways? Did you embrace it, and how often?
_Franklin._--I cannot immediately answer that question.
_Gout._--I will do it for you; not once.
_Franklin._--Not once?
_Gout._--Even so. During the summer you went there at six o'clock.
You found the charming lady, with her lovely children and friends,
eager to walk with you, and entertain you with their agreeable
conversation: and what has been your choice? Why to sit on the
terrace, satisfying yourself with the fine prospect, and passing
your eye over the beauties of the garden below, without taking one
step to descend and walk about in them. On the contrary, you call
for tea, and the chess-board; and lo! you are occupied in your seat
till nine o'clock, and that beside two hours play after dinner;
and then, instead of walking home, which would have bestirred you
a little, you step into your carriage. How absurd to suppose, that
all this carelessness can be reconcileable with health, without my
interposition!
_Franklin._--I am convinced now of the justness of poor Richard's
remark, that, "Our debts and our sins are always greater than we
think for."
_Gout._--So it is! you philosophers are sages in your maxims, and
fools in your conduct.
_Franklin._--But do you charge among my crimes, that I return in a
carriage from Mr. B----'s?
_Gout._--Certainly: for having been seated all the while, you cannot
object the fatigue of the day, and cannot want therefore the relief
of a carriage.
_Franklin._--What then would you have me do with my carriage?
_Gout._--Burn it, if you choose; you would at least get heat out of
it once in this way; or if you dislike that proposal, here's another
for you: observe the poor peasants who work in the vineyards and
grounds about the villages of Passy, Anteuil, Chaillois, &c.; you may
find every day among these deserving creatures, four or five old men
and women, bent and perhaps crippled by weight of years, and too long
and too great labour. After a most fatiguing day, these people have
to trudge a mile or two to their smoky huts. Order your coachmen to
set them down. That is an act that will be good for your soul; and
at the same time, after your visit to the B----'s, if you return on
foot, that will be good for your body.
_Franklin._--Ah! how tiresome you are.
_Gout._--Well then, to my office; it should not be forgotten, that I
am your physician. There.
_Franklin._--Ohhh! what a devil of a physician!
_Gout._--How ungrateful are you to say so! Is it not I, who, in the
character of your physician, have saved you from the palsy, dropsy,
and apoplexy? one or other of which would have done for you long ago,
but for me.
_Franklin._--I submit, and thank you for the past, but intreat the
discontinuance of your visits for the future: for in my mind one had
better die, than be cured so dolefully. Permit me just to hint, that
I have also not been unfriendly to _you_. I never feed physician, or
quack of any kind, to enter the list against you; if then you do not
leave me to my repose, it may be said you are ungrateful too.
_Gout._--I can scarcely acknowledge that as any objection. As to
quacks, I despise them: they may kill you, indeed, but cannot injure
me. And as to regular physicians, they are at last convinced, that
the gout, in such a subject as you are, is no disease, but a remedy;
and wherefore cure a remedy?--but to our business--There.--
_Franklin._--Oh! Oh!--for heaven's sake leave me; and I promise
faithfully never more to play at chess, but to take exercise daily,
and live temperately.
_Gout._--I know you too well. You promise fair; but, after a few
months of good health, you will return to your old habits; your fine
promises will be forgotten like the forms of the last year's clouds.
Let us then finish the account and I will go. But I leave you with an
assurance, of visiting you again at a proper time and place; for my
object is your good, and you are sensible now, that I am your real
friend.
FOOTNOTE:
[188] We have no authority for ascribing this paper to Dr. Franklin,
but its appearance, with his name, in a small collection of his works
printed a few years ago at Paris, and cited before, page 480. As the
rest of the papers in that collection are genuine, this probably is
also genuine. What we give is a translation. _Editor._
TO MISS HUBBARD.
_On the Death of Relatives[189]._
_Philadelphia, Feb. 22, 1756._
I condole with you. We have lost a most dear and valuable
relation[190]. But it is the will of God and nature, that these
mortal bodies be laid aside, when the soul is to enter into real
life. This is rather an embryo state, a preparation for living. A man
is not completely born until he be dead. Why then should we grieve,
that a new child is born among the immortals, a new member added to
their happy society? We are spirits. That bodies should be lent us,
while they can afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge,
or doing good to our fellow-creatures, is a kind and benevolent act
of God. When they become unfit for these purposes, and afford us
pain instead of pleasure, instead of an aid become an incumbrance,
and answer none of the intentions for which they were given, it is
equally kind and benevolent, that a way is provided by which we may
get rid of them. Death is that way. We ourselves, in some cases,
prudently choose a partial death. A mangled painful limb, which
cannot be restored, we willingly cut off. He, who plucks out a tooth,
parts with it freely, since the pain goes with it: and he, who quits
the whole body, parts at once with all pains, and possibilities of
pains and diseases, it was liable to, or capable of making him suffer.
Our friend and we were invited abroad on a party of pleasure, which
is to last for ever. His chair was ready first, and he is gone before
us. We could not all conveniently start together: and why should you
and I be grieved at this, since we are soon to follow, and know where
to find him?
Adieu.
B. FRANKLIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[189] From the Columbian Magazine, Vol. I, p. 208. _Editor._
[190] Dr. Franklin's brother, Mr. John Franklin.
TO MADAME BRILLIANT.
_The Ephemera an Emblem of human Life[191]._
You may remember, my dear friend, that when we lately spent that
happy day, in the delightful garden and sweet society of the Moulin
Joly, I stopt a little in one of our walks, and staid some time
behind the company. We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind
of little fly, called an ephemera, whose successive generations,
we were told, were bred and expired within the day. I happened to
see a living company of them on a leaf, who appeared to be engaged
in conversation. You know I understand all the inferior animal
tongues: my too great application to the study of them is the best
excuse I can give for the little progress I have made in your
charming language. I listened through curiosity to the discourse of
these little creatures; but as they, in their national vivacity,
spoke three or four together, I could make but little of their
conversation. I found, however, by some broken expressions that
I heard now and then, they were disputing warmly on the merit of
two foreign musicians, one a _cousin_, the other a _muscheto_; in
which dispute they spent their time, seemingly as regardless of the
shortness of life, as if they had been sure of living a month. Happy
people! thought I, you live certainly under a wise, just, and mild
government, since you have no public grievances to complain of, nor
any subject of contention, but the perfections or imperfections of
foreign music. I turned my head from them to an old grey-headed
one, who was single on another leaf, and talking to himself. Being
amused with his soliloquy, I put it down in writing, in hopes it
will likewise amuse her to whom I am so much indebted for the most
pleasing of all amusements, her delicious company, and heavenly
harmony.
"It was," says he, "the opinion of learned philosophers of our race,
who lived and flourished long before my time, that this vast world,
the Moulin Joly, could not itself subsist more than eighteen hours:
and I think there was some foundation for that opinion; since, by
the apparent motion of the great luminary, that gives life to all
nature, and which in my time has evidently declined considerably
towards the ocean at the end of our earth, it must then finish its
course, be extinguished in the waters that surround us, and leave the
world in cold and darkness, necessarily producing universal death and
destruction. I have lived seven of those hours; a great age, being
no less than four hundred and twenty minutes of time. How very few
of us continue so long? I have seen generations born, flourish, and
expire. My present friends are the children and grand-children of
the friends of my youth, who are now, alas no more! And I must soon
follow them; for, by the course of nature, though still in health,
I cannot expect to live above seven or eight minutes longer. What
now avails all my toil and labour, in amassing honey-dew on this
leaf, which I cannot live to enjoy! What the political struggles I
have been engaged in, for the good of my com-patriot inhabitants of
this bush, or my philosophical studies, for the benefit of our race
in general! for in politics (what can laws do without morals?) our
present race of ephemeræ will in a course of minutes become corrupt,
like those of other and older bushes, and consequently as wretched:
and in philosophy how small our progress! Alas! art is long, and life
is short! My friends would comfort me with the idea of a name, they
say, I shall leave behind me; and they tell me, I have lived long
enough to nature and to glory. But what will fame be to an ephemera,
who no longer exists? and what will become of all history in the
eighteenth hour, when the world itself, even the whole Moulin Joly,
shall come to its end, and be buried in universal ruin?"----
To me, after all my eager pursuits, no solid pleasures now remain,
but the reflection of a long life spent in meaning well, the sensible
conversation of a few good lady ephemeræ, and now and then a kind
smile and a tune from the ever amiable Brilliant.
B. FRANKLIN.
FOOTNOTE:
[191] From the American Museum, Vol. VIII. p. 183. It was written
during the author's residence at Passy, and a translation of it at
that time appeared in one of the Parisian periodical publications.
This appears to be the original piece. _Editor._
APPENDIX:
CONTAINING
1. PAPERS PROPER FOR INSERTION, BUT OMITTED,
IN THE PRECEDING VOLUMES:
AND
2. LETTERS BY SEVERAL EMINENT PERSONS, ILLUSTRATIVE
OF DR. FRANKLIN'S MANNERS
AND CHARACTER.
APPENDIX, No. I.
CONTAINING PAPERS PROPER FOR INSERTION, BUT OMITTED, IN THE PRECEDING
VOLUMES.
_Letter to Sir Hans Sloane[192]._
_June 2, 1725._
SIR,