"Full well he knew, where food does not refresh,
The shrivelled soul sinks inward with the flesh;
That he's best armed for danger's rash career,
_Who's crammed so full there is no room for fear_."
"Strange! that a creature rational, and cast
In human mould, should brutalize by choice
His nature."--COWPER.
GOOD CHEER AND A CHEERFUL HEART.--A MODERN SILENUS.--A SAD
WRECK.--DELIRIUM TREMENS.--FATAL ERRORS.--"EATING LIKE A
GLUTTON."--STRENGTH IN WEAKNESS.--A HOT PLACE, EVEN FOR A COOK.--A
HUNGRY DOCTOR.--THE MODERN GILPIN.--A CHANGE! A SOW FOR A HORSE!--A
DUCK POND.--THE FORLORN WIDOW.--A SCIENTIFIC
GORMAND.--ANOTHER.--"DOORN'T GO TO 'IM," ETC.--DR. BUTLER'S BEER AND
BATH.--CASTS HIS LAST VOTE.
If I confine this chapter to modern physicians, it will be brief. Though
doctors are usually pretty good livers, they, at this day of the world,
too well know the deadly properties of the villanous concoctions sold as
liquors to risk much of it in their own systems.
There is a whole sermon on eating in our first text above, and, while we
admit that gluttony is reprehensible, we detest "the shrivelled soul" who
starves wittingly his body to heap up riches, or under the idle delusion
of starving out disease, or "mortifying the flesh." If not very
"mortifying," it is very depressing, to be bored by one of these "lean,
lank hypochondriacs,"--to have to entertain, or be entertained by, such.
O, give me the wide-mouthed, the round-faced, or abdomened, the cheerful,
laughing man, especially if he's a doctor.
[Illustration: A GOOD LIVER.]
"Ah, doctor," said a poor, emaciated invalid to me during my first year's
practice at ----, "you do me good like a medicine by your presence. Why,
the blue devils leave the house the moment you enter. I don't believe you
was ever blue."
"Hereafter my patients shall never know that I am."
Nor is it necessary to gulp down ardent spirits to keep the spirits up.
Stimulants produce an unnatural buoyancy of spirits, and the unnatural
destroys the natural habit of the system. A good and natural habit does
not grow upon a person to his injury; an unnatural one always does, ending
in his destruction. A good living gives good spirits; _cæteris paribus_, a
poor living low spirits.