LETTER IX. OF HEALTH.

Health results from moderation, gayety and the absence of care. Eternal wisdom has ordained, that the emotions which disturb our days, are those which have a natural tendency to shorten them.[16]

If there were ground for a single charge against the justice of nature, it would be, that the errors of inexperience seem punished with too great severity. We prodigally waste the material of life and enjoyment, as we do our other possessions, as if we thought it inexhaustible.

To the errors of youth succeed the vices of mature age. Ambition and cupidity, envy and hatred concur to devour the very aliment of life. The storms which prostrate the moral faculties, equally sap the physical energy. Every debasing passion is a consuming poison. To what other source of evil can we assign those inquietudes and puerile anxieties, which disturb the days of the greater portion of mankind? They are occupied by trifling interests, and agitated by vain debates. They watch for futile excitements, and are in desolation from chimerical troubles. Pleasant emotions sustain life, and produce upon it the effect of a gentle current of air[74] upon flame. Trains of thought habitually elevated, and sometimes inclined to revery, impart pure and true gayety to the soul. To be able to command this train is one of the rarest felicities of endowment. A distinguished physician recorded in his tablets the apparent paradox, that three quarters of men die of vexation or grief.

Huffland has published a work, upon the art of prolonging life, full of interesting observations. ‘Philosophers,’ says he, ‘enjoy a delightful leisure. Their thoughts, generally estranged from vulgar interests, have nothing in common with those afflicting ideas, with which other men are continually agitated and corroded. Their reflections are agreeable by their variety, their vague liberty, and sometimes even by their frivolity. Devoted to the pursuits of their choice, the occupations of their taste, they dispose freely of their time. Oftentimes they surround themselves with young people, that their natural vivacity may be communicated to them, and, in some sort, produce a renewal of their youth.’ We may make a distinction between the different kinds of philosophy, in relation to their influence upon the duration of life. Those which direct the mind towards sublime contemplations, even were they in some degree superstitious, such as those of Pythagoras and Plato, are the most salutary. Next to them, I place those, the study of which, embracing nature, gives enlarged and elevated ideas upon infinity, the stars, the wonders of the universe, the heroic virtues, and other similar subjects. Such were those of Democritus, Philolaus, Xenophanes, the Stoics, and the ancient astronomers.’

‘I may cite next those less profound thinkers, who[75] instead of exacting difficult researches, seemed destined only to amuse the mind; the followers of which philosophy, deviating wide from vulgar opinion, peaceably sustain the arguments for and against the propositions advanced. Such was the philosophy of Carneades and the Academicians, to whom we may add the Grammarians and Rhetoricians.’

‘But those which turn only upon painful subtilties, which are affirmative, dogmatic and positive, which bend all facts and opinions to form and adjust them to certain preconceived principles and invariable measures; in fine, such as are thorny, arid, narrow and contentious, these are fatal in tendency, and cannot but abridge the life of those, who cultivate them. Of this class was the philosophy of the Peripatetics, and that also of the Scholastics.’

Tumultuous passions and corroding cares are two sources of evil influences, which philosophy avoids. Another influence, adverse to life, is that mental feebleness, which renders persons perpetually solicitous about their health, effeminate and unhappy. Fixing their thoughts intensely on the functions of life, those functions, that are subjects of this anxious inspection, labor. Imagining themselves sick, they soon become so. The undoubting confidence that we shall not be sick, is perhaps the best prophylactic for preserving health.

I am ignorant of the exact influence of moral upon physical action, in relation to health. But of this I am confident, that it is prodigious; that physicians have not made it a sufficient element in their calculations, or employed it as they should; and that in future, under a wise and more philosophic direction, it may operate an immense result, both in restoring and preserving health.

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A man reads a letter, which announces misfortunes, or sinister events. His head turns. His appetite ceases. He becomes faint, and oppressed; and his life is in danger. No contagion, however, no physical blow has touched him. A thought has palsied his forces in a moment; and has successively deranged every spring of life. We have read of persons of feeble and uninformed mind, who have fallen sick, in consequence of the cruel sport of those, who have ingeniously alarmed their imagination, and cautiously indicated to them a train of fatal symptoms. Since imagination can thus certainly overturn our physical powers, why may it not, under certain regulations, restore them? Among the numberless recorded cases of cures, reputed miraculous, it is probable, that a great part may be accounted for on this principle.[17]

Suppose a paralytic disciple of the school of miracles, whose head is exalted with ideas of the mystic power of certain holy men, and who is meditating on the succor which he expects from a divine interposition manifested in his favor. In an ecstasy of faith, he sees a minister of heaven descend enveloped in light, who bids him ‘arise, and walk.’ In a moment the unknown nervous energy, excited by the mysterious power of faith, touches the countless inert and relaxed movements. The man arises and walks. During the siege of Lyons, when bombs fell on the hospital, the terrified paralytics arose and fled.

I am not disposed to question all the cures, which in France have been attributed to magnetism. We know, what a salutary effect the sight of his physician produces on the patient, who has confidence in him. His[77] cheerful and encouraging conversations are among the most efficient remedies. If we entertained a long cherished and intimate persuasion, that by certain signs, or touches, he could dispel our complaints, his gestures would have a high moral and physical influence. Magnetism was in this sense, as Bailly justly remarked, a true experiment upon the power of the imagination. At the moment of its greatest sway, while some regarded it an infallible specific, and others deemed it entirely inefficient, another class held it in just estimation. I cite an extract from the report of the Academy of Science.

‘We have sought,’ say they, ‘to recognise the presence of the magnetic fluid. But it escaped our senses. It was said, that its action upon animated bodies was the sole proof of its existence. The experiments, which we made upon ourselves, convinced us, that, as soon as we diverted our attention, it was powerless. Trials made upon the sick taught us, that infancy, which is unsusceptible of prejudice experienced nothing from it; that mental alienation resisted the action of magnetism, even in an habitual condition of excitability of the nerves, where the action ought to have been most sensible. The effects which are attributed to this fluid, are not visible, except when the imagination is forewarned, and capable of being struck. Imagination, then, seems to be the principle of the action.

‘It remained to be seen, whether we could reproduce these effects by the influence of imagination alone. We attempted it, and fully succeeded. Without touching the subjects, who believed themselves magnetised, and without employing any sign, they complained of pain and a great sensation of heat. On subjects, endowed with[78] more excitable nerves, we produced convulsions, and what they called crises. We have seen an exalted imagination become sufficiently energetic to take away the power of speech in a moment. At the same time, we proved the nullity of magnetism, put in opposition with the imagination. Magnetism alone, employed for thirty minutes, produced no effect. Imagination put in action produced upon the same person, with the same means, in circumstances absolutely similar, a strong, and well defined convulsion.

‘In fine, to complete the demonstration, and to finish the painting of the effect of the imagination, a power equally capable of agitating, and calming, we have caused those convulsions to cease by the same power, which produced them—the power of the imagination.

‘What we have learned, or, at least what has been confirmed to us in a demonstrative and evident manner, by examination of the processes of magnetism is, that man can act upon man at every moment and almost at will, by striking his imagination; that signs and gestures the most simple may have effects the most powerful; and that the influence which may be exerted upon the imagination, may be reduced to an art, and conducted by method.’

These truths had never before acquired so much evidence. We know, that cures may be wrought by the single influence of imagination. Ambrose Paré Boerhaave, and many other physicians, have cited striking proofs of this fact. The first of these writers procured abundant sweats for a patient, in making him believe that a perfectly inert substance given him, was a violent sudorific.

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It is worthy of the attention of moralists and physiologists, as well as physicians, to examine, to what point we may obtain salutary effects, by exciting the imagination. But perhaps, there would soon be cause to dread the perilous influence of this art, which can kill, as well as make alive. This excitable and vivid faculty is never more easily put in operation, that when acted upon by the presentiments of charlatanism and superstition.

We possess another means of operation, which may be exercised without danger, and the power of which is, also, capable of producing prodigies. Education rendering most men feeble and timid, they are ignorant, how much an energetic will can accomplish. It is able to shield us from many maladies; and to hasten the cure of those under which we labor.

In mortal epidemics, the physicians, who are alarmed at their danger, are ordinarily the first victims. Fear plunges the system into that state of debility, which predisposes it to fatal impressions, while the moral force of confidence, communicating its aid to physical energy, enables it to repel contagion.

I could cite many distinguished names of men, who attributed their cure, in desperate maladies, to the courage which never forsook them, and to the efforts which they made to keep alive the vital spark, when ready to become extinct. One of them pleasantly said, ‘I should have died like the rest, had I wished it.’[18]

Pecklin, Barthes and others think that extreme desire to see a beloved person once more, has sometimes a power to retard death. It is a delightful idea. I feel with what intense ardor one might desire to live another day, another hour, to see a friend or a child for the last[80] time. The flame of love, replacing that of life, blazes up for a moment before both are quenched in the final darkness. The last prayer is accorded; and life terminates in tasting that pleasure for which it was prolonged. If this be true, the principle on which the most touching incident of romance is founded, is not a fiction.

I have no need to say that an energetic will to recover from sickness has no point of analogy with that fearful solicitude which the greater part of the sick experience. The latter, produced by mental feebleness, increases the inquietude and aggravates the danger. Even indifference would be preferable. If education had imparted to us the advantages of an energetic will and real force of mind, if from infancy we had been convinced of the efficacy of this moral power, we have no means to determine that it would not have been, in union with the desire of life, an element in the means of healing our maladies.

Medicine is still a science so conjectural that the most salutary method of cure, in my view, is that which strives not to contradict nature, but to second her efforts by moral means. I am ready to believe that amidst the real or imagined triumphs of science, those of medicine will, in the centuries to come, hold a rank to which its past achievements will have borne no proportion. But what an immense amount of experiment will be necessary! How many unfortunate beings must contribute to the expense of these experiments!

Contrary to the general opinion, I highly esteem physicians and think but very little of medicine. In the profession of medicine we find the greatest number of men of solid minds and various erudition; and the best friends of humanity. But they are in the habit of vaunting[81] the progress of their science. To me it seems incessantly changing its principles, without ever varying its results. The systems of various great men have been successively received and rejected. Do we, however, imagine that the great physicians who have preceded us were more unfortunate in their practice than those of our days? Among the most eminent physicians of our cities, one practises by administering strong cathartics. Another is resolute for copious bleeding. A third bids us watch and wait the indications of nature. Each of these assumes that the system of the rest is fatal—and so, it would seem, it should be. At the end of the year, however, I doubt if any one of them all has more reproaches to make, as regards want of success, than any other.

From these facts, there are those who hold that it is most prudent to confide to nature, as the physician; forgetful that, if he could bring no other remedy than hope, he unites moral to physical aid. Yet, the very persons who, in health are readiest to maintain this doctrine, like children who are heroes during the day but cowards in the dark, when they are sick, are as prompt as others in sending for the physician.

Even if agitation and fear had not fatal effects, in rendering us more accessible to maladies, wisdom would strive to banish them, in pursuit of the science of happiness. Fear, by anticipating agony, doubles our sufferings. If there could exist a rational ground for continual inquietude, it would be found in a frail constitution. But how many men of the feeblest health survive those of the most vigorous and robust frame! Calculations upon the duration of life are so uncertain that we can always make them in our favor.

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To him who cultivates a mild and pleasant philosophy, old age itself should not be contemplated with alarm. It may seem a paradox to say that all men are nearly of the same age, in reference to their chances of another day. Men are as confident of seeing tomorrow and the succeeding day, at eighty, as at sixteen. Such is the beautiful veil with which nature conceals from us the darkness of the future.

In general, men have less sympathy for the suffering than their condition ought to inspire. We meet them with a sad face and are more earnest to show them that we are afflicted ourselves, than to seek to cheer their dejection. We multiply so many questions touching their health that it would seem as if we feared to allow them to forget that they were sick.

Of all subjects of conversation, my own pains and physical infirmities have become the least interesting to me; as I know they must be to others. I do not wish that those who surround my sick bed should converse as though arranging the preparations for my last dress, or determining the hour of my interment.

If we would live in peace, and die in tranquillity, let us, as much as possible, avoid importunate cares. Our business is to unite as many friends as we may; and to beguile pain and sorrow by treasuring as many resources of innocent amusement as our means will admit. If our sufferings become painful and incurable, we must concentrate our mental energy and settle on our solitary powers of endurance. We die, or we recover. Nature, though calm, moves irresistibly to her point; and complaint is always worse than useless.[19]

But in arming ourselves with courage to support our own evils, let us preserve sensibility and sympathy for[83] the sufferings of others. It is among the dangerously sick that we find those unfortunate beings who are most worthy to inspire our pity. Their only expectation is death, preceded by cruel tortures; and yet they, probably, suffer less for themselves than for weeping dependents whom they are leaving, it may be, without a single prop. Ah! during the few days of sorrow that remain to them on the earth, how earnestly ought we to strive to mitigate their pains, to calm their alarms and animate their feeble hopes! Blessed be that beneficent being who shall call one smile more upon their dying lips!