A PRELIMINARY INTRODUCTION TO THE ACT OF
SEA-BATHING
; WHEREIN IS SHEWN
Its Nature, Power, and Importance;
WITH SOME NECESSARY HINTS FOR THE ATTENTION OF VISITERS,
AT THE WATERING PLACES,
PREVIOUS TO, AND DURING A
COURSE OF BATHING
BY JOHN ANDERSON, M.D., F.A.S., C.M.
. &c. PHYSICIAN TO, AND A DIRECTOR OF, THE GENERAL SEA-BATHING INFIRMARY, AT MARGATE.
MARGATE
PRINTED FOR C. DILLY, IN THE POULTRY, AND E. MURRAY, FLEET-STREET, LONDON; TO BE HAD AT THE LIBRARIES MARGATE, RAMSGATE, AND BROADSTAIRS.
1795.
PRELIMINARY INTRODUCTION TO SEA-BATHING.
IT may be proper to inform the READER, that, in compliance with the request of some highly distinguished gentlemen of the faculty, I have undertaken to write on the nature, power, influence, and effect of Sea-water and Sea-bathing, cold and hot, and submitted the manuscripts to be read before a learned MEDICAL SOCIETY, in
London;
and also to be reviewed by sundry learned medical friends; and the reports on them are highly flattering, but which it may be prudent to conceal till the public opinion is known.
The subject matter, thus assigned me to sift and handle, is sufficiently interesting; and stands in much need of farther investigation. Sea-bathing is certainly more practised, at the present day, than a knowledge of it is yet possessed. There is in it great room to advance, explain, enforce, and restrain. What I deliver shall, though connected, be in distinct tracts, in order to relieve the reader, and make them come easy to the purchaser: the whole will be the result of long practical experience, and the facts supported by respectable living evidence, of gentlemen of the faculty on the coast, and long-standing sagacious sea-bathing guides, male and female, at MARGATE. Where any thing is left doubtful or equivocal, it is for professional men, resident at the sea-watering places, to advance a step farther, and add to, and refine on, my arguments, and the importance of the design; and by their being thus faithful interpreters of the hidden treasures of nature, will manifest themselves to be what they profess, the
guardians
of health, and the truly adopted sons and heirs of
Apollo,
the Inventor of Medicine.
Divisum sic breve fiet opus.
None else are, or can be competent to the task; as seabathing involves in it a knowledge of the animal oeconomy, and of general medical practice, founded on just physical reasoning; call it theory if you will. Experience without nice conception of the truths necessary, demonstrable by reason, to enable us to draw just deductions from the phenomena, for application to particular objects, is no experience at all: it is worse than none; for it involves in obscurity, and fixes an idea in the mind, narrow in its compass, hazardous in the enterprize, and often false in the conclusion; so that it brings nothing to the temple of truth and knowledge; and, neither promotes, completes, or actuates to new inventions or any useful discovery of the several dependencies, causes, and connexion of things, so far as comes within the ken of human intelligence. All theory beyond this, is as vain and fruitless as that of simple curs barking and leaping after the wild birds of the sky, or at the light of, and specks in the moon. There is not the same
Libertas philosophica
in
Ars Medica
as in
Licentia poetica
for the flights of fancy. As speculative literature is baseless, our faith is left free; nothing less than solid truth can be rested on; it is the great barrier against the floods of error, ignorance, and sceptical hypothesis, or fictious sophistry. In truth, there is certitude, of what is good or bad: in ignorance, diffidence, doubt, and danger.
"So want of knowing truth doth fools delude,
And error from the right way doth exclude,
All those that doubt;"—
HORACE.
The
Stoics
esteem him mad who is blindly led by ignorance instead of truth. Diffidence and obstinacy, though opposite in themselves, are both in the line of defection. Diffidence is no just excuse for the concealment of an important fact; others may theorize thereon. Theory helps us out in the knowledge of reasons and causes, for settling our judgments upon the best and most rational principles.
Theory and practice, like two heavenly bodies, attract light on each other: the one without the other is like the statue of
Polyphemus
without an eye, or a lamp without oil. Every man hath some theory or other—good or bad:—his cannot be wrong whose practice is uniformly successful: it is in full proof, if actions are allowed to be stronger than words. In strict logic, it is not allowed to pass from the hypothesis to the thesis: the hypothetical principle must be proved, before the consequences can be admitted: opinion must be implanted, or resolution determined, before reasons for that opinion can be known: illustration and just representation, by example, is required to enlighten and instruct the understanding, or the truth of a doctrine cannot be confirmed, or its principles established. Sir
Isaac Newton
says, "As in mathematics, so in natural philosophy, the investigation of difficult things, by way of analysis, ought ever to precede the method of composition. This analysis consists in making experiments and observations, and in drawing general conclusions from them by induction, and admitting of no objections against the conclusions, but such as are taken from experiments and observations, or other certain truths: and although the arguing from experiments and observations by induction, be no demonstration of general conclusions, yet it is the best way of reasoning, which the nature of things admit of, and may be looked upon as so much the stronger, by how much the induction is more general: and if no exception occur from phenomena, the conclusion may be pronounced generally. But if at any time afterwards, any exceptions do occur from experiments, it may be pronounced, with such exceptions as shall occur. By this way of analysis, we may proceed from compounds to ingredients, and from motions to the forces producing them; and in general from effects to their causes, and from particular causes to more general ones, till the argument ends in the most general."
Op.
p. 380. l. 31.
The theory required, founded on the light of nature, concerning man, his diseases, affections, (bodily and mental) dependencies, mutations, diversisications, resistances, sympathies and antipathies, indicating and contra-indicating symptoms, concordant and discordant opinions and principles, together with the force and influence of the planetary system on our orb, is infinite, obscure, and marvellous to human wisdom, yet does honour to the eternal immutable
Being,
who hath not only created, but preserveth the variety. There is nothing without its counteracting opponent: there is no disease without its antidote: vice, hath virtue: hatred, love: malevolence, charity:—theorists oppose; and, by their opposing opinions, truth comes out, and the arts and sciences are refined and improved. This system of opposition is maintained throughout the whole animal and vegetable creation:
"All nature is but art unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good:
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear,
Whatever is, is Right."
POPE.
All theories may be referred to the general laws of motion. Sea-bathing comprehends in it the powers and qualities of fluidity, gravity, pressure, attraction, repulsion, stimulation, friction, attrition, and velocity; cold, heat, humidity, dryness, effluvia, &c.
If what I offer to the public shall meet with a reception equal to the intention, to awaken and persuade my fellow creatures, upon rational grounds, to keep out of the road that leads to pain, sorrow, and premature death, and embrace health, that inestimable blessing which gives relish to all our enjoyments, my ambition will be amply gratified in being permitted to add my mite to the public fund of preservatory knowledge.
Although I write from the locality of my situation, yet the observations I have made, the important facts I have industriously collected, and the dubious points I have more fully ascertained, are so general as to serve equally well for every other eligible sea-bathing place at home or abroad.
Neither the advantages of Sea-bathing, at
Margate,
nor the salubrious property of the air of
Thanet,
have hitherto commanded medical attention equal to what their importance deserve, consequently are not sufficiently known to the public.
Res ipsa loquitur.
Sea-bathing has certainly worked its own way more than by any industry of the
saculty.
During twelve years and upwards that I resided at KINGSTON,
Surry,
before I came to
Margate,
though I was allowed to be fortunate, under heaven, in relieving pain and distress, yet I wish to throw a veil over my ignorance of the power and effects of
Sea-bathing,
as of those I recommended to it, some returned no better, some worse; and some I sent to the cold sea-bath whom I ought to have sent to the warm,
et vice versa,
which I candidly acknowledged in my
Medical Remarks
the moment I knew better, wherefore there is but too much room to conclude, that all those who returned benefitted, were more indebted to chance than to any precise judgment or theory of mine. I have to plead for it, I was an inland practiser, when all my knowledge of it was derived from the very few practical treatises I had seen, or could obtain on the subject; and neither of those I saw were so perfect as to give me adequate ideas of it for practice: some, in some things, egregiously misled me: some others were misled themselves; and it making no part of academical education, my mind was not prompted to consider the efficacy of Sea-water as any thing beyond that of a mere wash for a foul skin, whereas there is no part, I will say, of the whole
materia medica,
yet known so extensively efficacious, under judicious direction, or detrimental, under indiscreet, ill-timed management. If it was not capable of doing harm, it would be incapable of doing good.
In those simples which dwell the most virulent poisons, dwell also, the most potent, salutary virtues:
"There is some soul goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out."
SHAKESPEARE.
The most capital things of nature lie generally out of the common track; and, therefore the man who aims at great and useful discovery, must take much upon himself, for few will follow until the point is fully ascertained; and it is well if he does not meet with discouragement for his diligent inquiry.
In proportion to our confidence, proficiency, and enlarged views of nature, so are the miseries of mankind abridged, and the means are multiplied for yielding a comfortable existence. It is for me, and for every one of us, who undertake the important charge of lives, to open and expand our ideas, for receiving more ample and more enlarged views of the discoverable things of nature, her silent ways, the dispensations of providence, and the exigencies of man; which, if every one did, we should see fewer improper objects arrive at the sea-watering places, with very inadequate directions and large packages of compounded drugs, which no rational practitioner, physician, or apothecary, can act with and under, by which some have severely suffered, others received no benefit, and the water forsooth, blamed for what it had no hand in.
Lamentabili dictu!
—None have fuffered at MARGATE, except the indiscreet and unthinking, or who have been so unfortunate as to be badly advised and injudiciously directed, no matter whether by those on the coast or inland, who have not yet acquired a competent knowledge of the state, qualities, powers, order, affinity, and appropriation of the objects of nature to the seminal and radical causes of distemper, or the patients ability of body to sustain the proposed means for receiving relief.
I have observed some to have come, and, under judicious direction, receive much benefit; come a second time, resting on their own judgment and experience, and suffer.
Those who are dead and insensible to all the warm emotions and pleasing sensations that result from the act of self-preservation—the
amor sui
—we cannot expect to resuscitate. I say with
Horace:
"Let none but learned doctors physic give,
Let each mechanic by his calling live."
And with
Pliny:
"The arts would be happy if only artists might judge of them and practise them."
By an improper application of sea-bathing, through ignorance, the intention of the bath is frustrated, the symptoms of a complaint aggravated, new fatal ones brought on, and the voice of nature is silenced. That eloquent, and much enlightened genius, the late Dr.
JOHN MORGAN,
Professor of Medicine in the College of
Philadelphia,
in his Anniversary Discourse, published in 1765, has the following spirited passage, which does honour to his humanity.
"Should we," says he, "for a moment turn our eyes upon the man, who dares to enter upon the practice of physic, without being properly initiated into the science, or instructed in the important duties of the profession, he would soon present us with a melancholy prospect. If not past all feelings of humanity, what compunctions of conscience, what remorse would not fill his breast from practising at random and in the dark; not knowing whether his prescriptions might prove a wholesome remedy or a destructive poison. To discover the nature of an uncommon disease, or to account for an unusual symptom, puzzles his invention.—Ignorant of every true principle, from which, by just reasoning, he might be able to deduce practical inferences, he knows not what prognostic to make, or what plan of treatment to observe—Unsteady and irresolute, he attempts a variety of means; such as either avail not, or such as heighten the danger of the disease, already too violent, he may thus interrupt the salutary attempts of nature, or, not knowing how to second them, tamper with the life of the patient, and idly waiting to see what nature herself is capable of doing, neglect to succour her, till it is too late, and the fatal hand of death is just closing the gloomy scene.—Wretched is the case of those whom chance, or misinformed judgment, shall throw into his hands, to fall victims of his temerity—Great is the havock which his ignorance spreads on every side, robbing the affectionate husband of his darling spouse, or rendering the tender wife a helpless widow;—increasing the number of orphans;—mercilessly depriving them of their parents support;—bereaving the afflicted parents of their only comfort and hope, by the untimely death of their beloved infants, and laying whole families desolate. Remorseless soe to human kind! Actuated by more than savage cruelty! Hold, hold, thy exterminating hand!—
"Glad should I be to moderate this too exact description of the effects of ignorant and presumptuous practice; but what judgment can we pass on those, who have been scarcely instructed in the first elements of medical science, and yet force themselves into practice, as if they meant to sport themselves with human life and human calamities?"
If medicine be allowed to be a great blessing in the hands of the sagacious and wise, and as a sword in the hands of the foolish and furious, so is sea-bathing. Too much being assumed and taken for granted, is the reason so little progress has hitherto been made in its theory for guiding the hand of practice. The greatest enemy to wisdom and prudence is precipitation.
Nine years ago I happened to come to MARCATE in quest of strength, after a long and severe fever; and receiving a very sensible benefit the first season by sea-bathing, and the salubrious air of
Thanet,
I was thereon led to make inquiry into their special effects on other visitors, and what I actually saw, and was credibly informed of by some of the bathing guides, I thought important, and it not being generally known, I immediately published it in my
Medical Remarks on Evacuations.
Since that time, I have had frequent opportunity of observing more minutely their effects on others under various states, circumstances, and conditions of body: in simple and complicated, acute and chronic, casual and inherent complaints; and every year's experience gives manifold proofs of their very great utility to health: they restore and preserve. There are but few distempers incident to human nature in which either the cold, the warm, or vapour sea-water bath, and the air of a salubrious spot on the margin of the main, such as
Thanet,
are not equal to meet and prove more or less beneficial in. I have seen, on a well directed course, diseases not only palliated, but many cured by them, after having baffled the power of medicine in rational artists hands. These baths are certainly most excellent auxiliaries to medicine, diet, exercise, and amusement, as these are to them, which accounts for the great flux and re-flux of company, from the king to the beggar, to, and from the sea-watering places, during the temperate seasons;
"Where Baths give vigour and the Waters health."
Or, as a late ingenious MARGATE visitant to mount
Parnassus
describes it;
"The briny wave doth thousands save,
Alike from Grave and Crutches;
Makes Aged young, the feeble strong,
Or Beggar, Duke, or Duchess."
COLEMAN.
Sea-water is not a mere simple homogeneous elemental fluid
simplex simplicitur,
but nature's richly saturated compound. It contains, say chemical philosophers, a muriatic bitter purging salt, calcarious earth, and sulphureous bitumen: and
Boyle,
and other naturalists agree in there being a subtle aetherial spirit in water, which some call fixed air, some phlogiston or inflammable air, besides a pure air, which airs become elastic, as seen by the sparkling air bubbles.
The proportion of the principles of sea-water vary in some distant seas, and in deep and in shallow water: some say the sea is more salt in summer than in winter, warmer in a tempest than in a calm. There is in sea-water, besides its original native principles, the impregnation of submarine plants, such as the
Quercus Marinus,
or sea-wreck, and other plants; the slime, sperm, and excrementitious parts of fishes; their, and other dead bodies, rain, dew, hail, snow, springs, and the disemboguing of rivers and ponds; together with fossils, minerals, and the refuse of ships, &c. the combination of all which heterogeneous particles render sea-water, on stagnation and being close kept, quickly corruptible. After a long calm at sea the stench is very offensive, and that which issues forth on opening a cask of sea-water, that has been kept for some time in the hold of a ship, is intolerable, nay deadly. If it were not for the tides there would be no living near the sea in a calm. As the aerial spirit in waters is extremely fugitive, they are all better drank on the spot than at a distance, and the more they are crowded with their principles they spoil the sooner.
The sea-beach on the coast of
Thanet
is made up of fine sand, intermixed with chalk that breaks off from the cliffs after intense long continued frost, and is melted by the flowing tides: those cliffs that gave to
Britain
the ancient name of
Albion:
"That pale, that white-faced shore,
Whose foot spurns back th' ocean's roaring tides."
SHAKESPEARE.
Thus, there is a bottom that is remarkably clean, soft, smooth, yet invariably firm and gently sloping from the fending banks, which render
Thanet
's coast very inviting to bathe.
The sea-water at MARGATE is not only pure, but strong of its native principles, by reason no rivers run into the ocean to make it muddy and brackish nearer than the
Thames
and
Medway,
both thirty miles to the westward, and these repelled back again by the flood tide.
The first three or four years I stood a mere spectator and inquirer into the power, influence, and effects of sea-bathing before ever I thought myself competent to direct a course of it: it was to me a new study, though an ancient practice; for
Homer
tells us, that
Ulysses
and his comrades bathed in warm water and in the sea to refresh themselves after fatigue, before they dined. He mentions purifyng the
Atrides
in the sea.
Although we have the testimony and suffrage of some of the greatest philosophers and sage physicians, in the different ages of the world, for the cold spring and soft tepid baths being the most universal remedies in the whole compass of nature; yet in a medicinal light they are far, very far inferior in efficacy to the warm and cold sea-water baths, only they are not so convenient or so easy for all, at all times, to come at. If few speak for, few speak against them, because they are not competent of their power and effects; and, if they are not of their ill as well as good, we cannot take their silence to be suffrage.
At first I met with much difficulty in obtaining intelligence; for the faculty, and the sea-bathing guides at MARGATE, all told me they never had been put on the line of observing; for, if they had, they said they could have furnished me with many important facts of the power and effect, both good and ill, of sea-bathing:
"They build on sands, which unmov'd they find,
'Tis because there was no wind."
COWLEY.
And my not meeting with a scrip on the subject in any of the libraries that afforded me the least satisfaction, I had to persevere in wading through thick shades of darkness till I came into fair light, when I clearly saw the impropriety of their receiving all that came without exeeption, as if sea-bathing was an universal sovereign specific remedy for all complaints, whatever were their nature or cause; was proper at all times, and suited to all constitutions, temperaments, states, and conditions of body, modes of living; and that by one mode of bathing only, and of pushing the bath indiscriminately beyond what nature can bear. Can there be any error, theoretical or practical, more absurd or unphilosophical? Art is subservient to nature; to relieve, polish, and improve nature. If nature and art do not go hand in hand, and mutually accord, nothing will be perfected or established in any art or science. Nature will be led, but not driven.
Although many discoveries are made in natural history, yet many are still to make, and the point of view necessary to place many things in for a just application is still much wanting, defective, and but imperfectly understood. This we may apply to sea-bathing as much as to any part of medical practice. When we talk of sea-bathing being efficacious in this, or in that complaint, we must mean to comprehend with it the state and condition of body at the time it has to operate upon. The cold spring and soft tepid baths may almost wholly be referred to
strictum
and
laxum,
even the
Sainted Wells,
in which they are very powerful.
Having seven years ago cautioned the MARGATE bathing guides against receiving any ailing persons, except with, and by the suffrage of the faculty; and the guides themselves seeing the p
priety of this, from some unfortunate accidents that happened that season and before, to improper and unprepared persons; to some of whom I had been called, but too late in some instances for
t to restore; I have not seen or heard of any since suffering violence by sea-bathing. I had no other way to prevent embarrassment that might in future acrue to ignorant and misled persons. The guides were not to blame; they were not competent, and their bread depends wholly on the multiplicity that bathe. We must rather impute to visitors themselves neglecting to apply for proper advice on the spot, which the poorest person that comes recommended may have. The French have a true saying of the English in respect to their health, which is, "that they do not think themselves sick soon enough, and they think themselves well too soon."
Notwithstanding of the many drawbacks on sea-bathing, whilst the bountiful ocean answers the peremptory demands of thousands and tens of thousands of proper claiments every year, it must ever be solicited aad embraced by the sons and daughters of affliction. Still it is no universal
panacea;
its gifts are by no means appropriated for, or dispensed to all; nor are all applicants equally capable of receiving them. There neither is, or can be any universal remedy to supersede all the other parts of GOD'S creation:—do away all degrees of comparison—invert the order of nature, and leave nothing for the inquiry, intelligence, or employment of man:
"Take but degree away, unhinge that string,
And hark what discord follows: each thing meets
In mere appugnancy."
SHAKESPEARE.
A generous cordial to a person fainting and satigued, is a comfortable reviving thing, but fiery ardent spirit to one with a hot stomach and inflamed blood, is adding fuel to the fire, or like giving a man a soporiferous draught in a lethargy. How often, alas! have I seen the misery of a disorder thus confirmed by injudicious, illtimed administration, that a judicious physician would, by quite an opposite treatment, have easily subdued. How often, on the other hand, have I rejoicingly beheld many a valuable life, that had been dispaired of by one set of men, restored speedily by others, who attended more minutely to the nice discriminating circumstances of nature, for facilitating the means she uses in her conflict with death. Though fifteen or twenty years since, some of these live useful members of society; yet how few are these, comparatively speaking, to the number of drowned persons restored annually to life by the Humane Society, after vital action in the heart, arteries and respiratory organs, had, for almost an incredible length of time, been suspended? And also to the number of great cures performed in our hospitals, after the complaints had baffled the art of sagacious private practisers? which shews the advantage of art where rational men of the faculty have strict justice done to their practice:
Hoc est Vivere bis posse priore frui.
Every instance of resuscitation corroborates to serve as a spur to us not to abandon nature too soon in her difficulties, when we every day see what she is capable of doing for giving relief in distress, with a little judicious well-timed help: but though the benignant hand of providence continues to anticipate on many occasions, the interposition of art by effecting her own work; yet men of judgment, understanding, experience, and observation, know that she is frequently interrupted and retarded therein by the officious hands of ignorance, temerity, and professional
juglers.
"An honest man's the noblest work of God."
Perseverence in doing good to our distressed fellow creatures is the crown and perfection of all virtues: every other principle of virtue attends it. If there are any ulcered souls that think this a burthen, or a drawback on trade, let not their judgment counteract or silence the voice of nature— the will of their
creator
and
preserver.
Let them consider, if the world was made for
Caesar,
it was for
Titus
too.
Those only who are in familiar habits with nature, can know any thing of her ways and the methods she takes in causing, and carrying off disease, and purifying the blood of noxious particles, that associate with the mass and bear down the fabric. The art is not to render the blood by the remedy in a worse state than it found it; which every medicine will do if injudiciously used, and the most potent one too the soonest.
To treat a disease rationally, it is not only necessary to know the remedy, but the natural constitution and acquired diathesis of the blood it has to act upon. The sagacious physician has many signs and tokens given him for his guide in the local and universal complaint; even the aspect of the countenance on the bed of sickness serves to enable him to make a genuine presage of the issue. This is called the
semiotic
or art of presaging by exterior signs. The disease, constitution, state, and nature's indications (salutary and erroneous) being known, she instantly presents to his enlightened mind what is calculated for opposing the morbid symptoms, and bringing relief out of the abundant stock from his extensive researches, under the protection of an all-attentive providence, without being tossed on the fluctuating wave of conjectural opinion or uncertainty: thus experience founded on analogy and comparative fact, imparts her observations to reason, and enables it to support, by fair evidence, solid conclusions against the common enemy
ignorance,
which saps the foundation, and undermines all genuine learning. Example hath the force of command.
Scientific principles certainly rest on
praecognita,
fixed, leading, or standing self-evident axioms, which are the objects of our senses—come within the sphere or cognizance of our intellectual faculties, and are consistent with reason and truth: on these science is enlarged and improved. Medical science being the most extensive of any, it taking in the whole compass and domain of nature, many things are yet beyond the amplitude of our intellectual view; and therefore its supporting pillars cannot all be reckoned, and our philosophy has not taught us to reduce infinite variety to difinite limitation without loss. How narrow and unstable all the systems of medical theory yet extant! every one having been so sullied by the improvements of the succeeding generation, that there is not one that has yet stood the test of half a century. HIPPOCRATES'
(pater noster artes medicoe)
excepted, which will stand as long as nature is true to herself: upon it we may make new acquests every day, it having endless store to improve on, but upon none else that I know. How short and fluctuating the College Catalogue of remedies to natures plan of the
materia medica,
as if all the rest beyond it were an useless mass of rubbish, only fit for being cast away, while
Deus et natura nihil faeiunt frustra.
CICERO, in his Academicks, speaks almost in these words: "I do not direct my thoughts to the little bear but the great bear, called
Helice
or
Charles' wain,
those famous
seven north stars;
that is, my ideas are to be enlarged, not narrowed, and therefore I must wander and expatiate a great deal farther. Absolute restriction is giving at once an effectual check to the spirit of inquiry, and locking up the human understanding in the dark vale of ignorance. The most enlightened genius, with every advantage, knows but in part; and all that physicians do, or can know of nature, may be resolved into principles of observation and physical fact. Their researches and disquisitions into occult and inscrutable paths; such as primordial efficient causes and inbred virtues, or to unravel that combination of causes which we call chance, more especially super-natural causes and their influences, would be fruitless, vain, arrogant, and bewildering, if not irreverent, that being nature itself; and nature is the art of the GODHEAD.
The dark profundity of heav'ns high plan,
Is known to angels, but conceal'd from man.
It is well if we can obtain a side glance, or a passing smile.
Though much remains to be discovered before we arrive at the
ne plus ultra,
yet enough is discovered of things and their virtues, to enable the human mind to form just ideas of the infinite wisdom, power, justice, and goodness of the great GOD of universal nature, whose benificence pours forth and discloses his blessings to every living thing, conducted by fixed and immutable laws, and the rule and order of his dispensation is the felicity of the
universe.
In every flow'r that blooms, or shrub that grows,
The GODHEAD smiles triumphant o'er his FOES.
Or, as LUCRETIUS more fully has it;
"God is in sea, and land, and air, and sky,
What would we more, all is DEITY.
Whate'er we see, or wheresoe'er we go,
We must see GOD, whether we will or no."
After what is said in this preliminary discourse, it will appear evident to the rational READER, that inasmuch as it is for physicians, and their brethren of the faculty, at the sea-watering places to explore and industriously acquire a competent knowledge of the nature, power, influence, and effect of sea-bathing, and its essential supporting auxilliaries for the relief of pain, agony, and distress; it is for
visitors
themselves not to be too indolent or refractory, to taking, and being guided by reason and judicious counsel on the spot, not only previous to, but from time to time, during a course of bathing, to prevent embarrassment, and to allow the bath to have fair play for answering the end and intention of it; for no writer can lay down rules to answer all and every one's case invariably; therefore to act laudably and gain success is the triumph of wisdom; it is the way to be acquainted with nature:
"Know all the good that individuals find,
Or GOD or NATURE meant to mere mankind;
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words,
Health, Peace,
and
Competence."
POPE.
END OF THE INTRODUCTION.
Published by the same Author.
MEDICAL REMARKS on Natural, Spontaneous, and Artificial Evacuation.
A PRACTICAL ESSAY on the good and bad Effects of Sea-Water and Sea-Bathing.
NEARLY READY FOR THE PEESS, A PRACTICAL ESSAY on the Power, Influence, and Effect—good and bad, of the tepid, warm, hot, and vapor Sea-Water Bath; AND One or Two more little Tracts, as necessary Accompanyments to them.