trary, when the ftomach is found, and bodily ftrength good, fo are appetite and digeftion. The circulation of blood is then brifk and free, the fpirits lively, and all the natural discharges being regular, no grofs humors or unfound juices, will be retained, to injure the constitution.

Those things premised, it is evident, that whatever remedies increase bodily ftrength, will moft powerfully affift digeftion; and confe quently, that cool, dry, pure air, and moderate exercise, are the best of all ftomachics: They will effectually promote ani mal heat and circulation, which regulate the ufe of the feveral vital parts.

Few, I believe, will doubt this affertion, who attend to the difference of their spirits and appetite in a frofty, clear day, when they use exercise without doors; compared to what they experience in warm, damp weather, when they indolently fit ftill within, and breathe a confined air.

It

It may therefore, be truly said, that fresh air and moderate exercise in restoring lost Appetite, and promoting animal Digeftion, are superior to every thing else; for although Peruvian bark, fteel, bitters, and the cold bath are all most excellent remedies; their effi cacy will be greatly increased, and their effects rendered much more permanent, by the affiftance of those natural benefits.

In a word, fuch is the potent aid of nature, that she disclaims all fuperficial and inadequate helps, and feldom wants more than the vigorous exertion of her own endeavours, joined with mild and fimple medicines, to remove fuch Chronic Diseases as pro ceed from a fault of the ftomach and bowels.

P 4 SECTION

SECTION X.

Of Nervous Disorders, Hyfteric Affec tions, Low Spirits and Melancholy; their Treatment and Cure.

HE word Nervous has been fo vaguely

THE

and indiscriminately applied, that it is neceffary to afcertain the complaints truly fuch, and to distinguish them from others improperly fo called.

Thofe diforders may be deemed nervous, where, from an original fault, or infirm texture of the nerves they become difagreeably affected by fuch flender causes, as would not produce the like fenfations in others, whofe nerves were in a natural ftate.

Instead of regarding this fimple diftinca tion, almoft every disorder accompanied with weak nerves has improperly been called nervous: But in this general and indefinite fenfe, all difeafes may be called fo; for the

nerves being the only fufceptible parts of animal bodies, and every where interwoven with all their folid parts, must suffer in proportion as they are injured by disease or external violence,

Such complaints being only symptoms or confequences of preceding diseases, cannot with propriety be called nervous, any more than a perfon may be faid to be deeply con fumptive, after a fevere fit of illness which had reduced him to fkin and bones.

Before we proceed further, it will be neceffary to explain in a fimple manner, the nature of those bodily powers which confti tute the very principles of life.

The human body is fuftained and kept alive by three principal powers, which like the movements of a clock or watch, co-ope rate and mutually affift each other: The firft is the Brain and nervous fyftem proceeding from it, the great fource of all sen

fation; the fecond is the Heart, with its

arteries or blood veffels; and the third is

the

the ftomach and bowels which prepare aliment for the body's nourishment.

In fpeaking of digeftion, it was remarked, that the ftomach lofes its power when de prived of nervous influence; and we must here take notice, that the regularity aud vigor of the heart's motion chiefly depend on the fame cause.

As therefore the brain and nerves, the heart and arteries, with the ftomach and bowels, are the principal inftruments of all fenfa tion, circulation, nutrition, life and motion, and the very agents which govern and direct the whole animal machine; it will neceffa rily follow, that when any of them becomes difconcerted and put out of order, the vital functions of the body must then be unduly performed.

“Where one link's broken, the whole chain's destroy'd.” Such is the extraordinary sympathy and intercourse between those several organs, that like fo many little provinces, allied by mu

tual