44 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



duce among them a much better way of living. They might bathe 

 themfelves in cold water (which is the bath I recommend) as regu- 

 hrly as the rich do, and this would keep them clean, a thing abfo- 

 3utely neceill\ry for health ; and we (hould not then fee fo many ob- 

 je'fts of naftinefs, as well as poverty and difeafe, as we fee in our 

 ftreets every day. Then, there is nothing to hinder them to ufe fric- 

 tion daily, and anointing when they can afford it. They might al- 

 fo^ with great benefit, expofe themfelves more to the air, and wear 

 fewer clothes than they do, and not fmother their poor children 

 with fo much fwaddling and wrapping, but bring them up naked, as 

 the Indians of North America do, and as many poor people in the 

 Highlands of Scotland do at this day *. As to their diet, fuch of 

 them as have been in ufe to drink fpirits, cannot be reft rained from 

 the ufe of them by any compulfion of law, nor otherwile, except 

 by aboliihing the ufe of them altogether for diet, and only allowing 

 them to be ufed by way of phyfic, and to be retailed by druggiftsf, 

 which was done, in Edinburgh, by an adl of the Town Council, in 

 1512 ; and if, at the fame time, the common people could be per- 

 fuaded to drink more of water and fmall beer, and much leis of 

 porter and ftrong beer, then they would keep their healths much 

 better, and our foldiers, as well as our failors, might, Uke the Ro- 

 man foldiers, go through the feveral climates of the earth with- 

 out being followed by furgeons and holpitals, and without lofmg 

 many more men by difeafe than by the fword of the enemy. 



And here, I think, it is proper to take notice of an excellent in- 

 flitution which Lycurgus brought from Crete to Sparta, It was 



what 



* There was in tli's coutry, fomc years ago, a French nobleman, tlie Marquis dc 

 Loregait, who brought up a Ton, he had, quite naked, till he was near the age of pu- 

 berty, when the women in his family obliged him to cover his nakednefs. He kept 

 his health perfectly well, and came through the difeafes of children, fuch as the faiall- 

 pox and meaflcs, as well as any children could do. 



i From hence comes the word Dram. 



