ATHLETIC EXERCISES. 75 



t>f ail » exercise, and diet on the human frame, and demon- 

 strating by such irrefragable examples, the extraordinary 

 alteration which these powerful agents, under du e manage- 

 jnent are capable of operating on the body of man. 



The antients were by no means unacquainted with, or The ancients 

 , , . /• 1- • 1 1 1 did avail them, 



inattentive to these instruments ot medicine, although {^i^^^ ^f ^^18 



modern practitioners appear to have no idea of removing practice to re- 

 j- . • 1 '..L r ^ L • i • 4. 4U ftoreorprefeivt 



disease or restoring health, but by pouring drugs into the jj^^l^t^/ 



stomach. Herodicus is said to have been the, first who ap- 

 plied the exercises and regimen of the gymnasium to the 

 removal of disease or the maintenance of health. Among 

 the Romans, Asclepeiades carried this so far, that he is said 

 by Celsus almost to have banished the use of internal re- 

 medies from his piaclice. He was the inventor of pensile 

 beds, which were used to induce sleep, and of various other, 

 modes of exercise and gestation, and rose to great eminence 

 as a physician at Rome. In his own person he afforded an 

 excellent -example of the wisdom of his rules and the pro- 

 priety of his regim.en* Pliny tells us that in early life, ha 

 made a public profession that he would a>|ree to forfeit all 

 pretensions to the name of a physician, should he ever suf- 

 fer from sickness, or die but of old age ; and what is mo re 

 extraordinary he fulfilled his promise, for he lived upwards 

 ©fa century, and at last was killed by a fall down stairs. 



As some of your queries seem intended to obtain inform- E^g^ts of led 

 ation concerning the effects of regimen in removing certain gimen* 

 diseased states of the constitution, I beg leave to point out 

 a few examples which have been sanctioned by experience. 



Several insla/ices have come within my own knowledge, 

 of individuals who, after Ij^ving suilered severely from re- abftinence from 

 peated attacks of gout, have completely eradicated that fermented li« 

 painful distemper, by an entire abstinence from fermented 

 and spirituous liquors of all kinds, and have by the same 

 means recovered a much greater share of health and vigour 

 than they could expect. 



The effects of the diesta aquea, or living wholly on pure 



water, cooled by ice, in alleviating the pam of cancel, and 



in several cases even of its effecting a complete cure of that 



L 2 painful 



