Voices of the sages, the times and the ages, or, Historic gleanings : teaching the way to attain health and longevity, virtue and happiness, and to avoid disease and early death, crime and misery / [Omega].

Date:
[between 1840 and 1849?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Voices of the sages, the times and the ages, or, Historic gleanings : teaching the way to attain health and longevity, virtue and happiness, and to avoid disease and early death, crime and misery / [Omega]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    through the latter indeed procuring to themselves honor, security, and piety, but through contemplation and science. With respect to wine, some of them did not drink it at all, and others drank very little of it, on account of its being injurious to the nerves, oppressive to the head, an impediment to invention, and an incentive to lust The old inhabitants of Italy, wiser than many moderns, per- ceived that the great evil was in the earlier excitement of wine, rather than in the later narcotic effect. Bayle well states the case :—As it is true that a person elevated with wine finds him- self more inclined and disposed to transgress the laws of chastity, so it is also true that a man perfectly drunk has no great disposi- tion that way. By excess, men destroy what wine moderately taken had produced. Dyonisius, Valerius Maximus, Polybius, Aulus, Gelius, Pliny, and article XVI. of Leges Regise, show thnt intoxicating wine was prohibited to the Italian women in the earlier ages, as also to all young men under thirty years of age. Hippocrates, one of the first physicians, saw the cause of diseases, and taught simplicity of diet, and proper attention to the exercise of the limbs and to cleanliness. He remarked, that disease did not come upon us all at once, but was the result of slowly pro- ducing causes. Yet men, when they are ailing, speak of some immediate cause, and hope to get well by some remedy equally quick; thus preventing themselves from looking to a steady estab- lishment of health, while they run into numerous errors in the mystery of cures. Socrates, one of the wisest of the Greek philosophers, was strictly frugal. It is related of him that lie had brought his appe- tite under such control that he never, on any occasion, overstepped the bounds of moderation and temperance ; he described the fun- damental principle of that reformation, which is now so much re- quired, lie recommended, and no doubt himself practised, entire abstinence from such articles of diet and luxury as stimulated them to eat when they were not hungry, and to drink when they were not thirsty He was not only a philosopher; in his early youth he distinguished himself by deeds of valor, and endurance of many hardships; his wisdom has become proverbial, and his heroic death showed that his courage endured to the last. His views of an Almighty Ruler were too pure for some of the magnates of his day, and they accused him of denying the gods of the state, and they condemned him to die by drinking poison ; he was offered an escape, but he preferred obedience to the laws ; drank the poison, and died, discoursing on the certainty of future life. J Epicurus, another philosopher, inscribed over his gates, these words :— Passenger ! here thou wilt find good entertainment; it is here pleasure is esteemed the sovereign good. The master will receive thee courteously; but take note, thou must expect only a