Star.
London, England, 1827-05-25 00:00:00

ABERNETHY'S LECTURES.

A Seatta Dtae.—" There was a fliend of mine," says
Mr.Abernethy, 44 who was supposed to be dying of a he-
tic affection—a thorough break-up ;he was advanced
in life; his liver was all wrong, and he was dying—at
least so his Doctor said : but as he was dying, and as a
drowning man will always catch at a straw, he expressed
a particular desire to see me, to know if I could order
anything that would do him good. I was sent for, and
.1 went into the country to see him. I said to him—
' Upon my life, Sir, I should-be most happy if I could
suggest anything that was likely to do you good, but I
am very ignorant of the medical profession, and if 1
were not, I really don't think I could suggest more ju-
dicious treatment than has been prescribed ; but, Sir, I
shall give you a lecture on your diet, in the presence of
yonr medical man.' I knew the man before; be prided
himself on his virtue; he drank no wine, but be did that
which, for anything I know, is as bad—he eat most
preposterously—was a perfect glutton. Now, said I, I
know you like milk ; I shall give you a cup of milk for
breakfast, and you may pat a piece of bread in it, but
not one drop of the milk displaced by the bread must
be replaced in the cup; you may take a new-laid egg
to dinner, and a piece of bread and butter; about four
o'clock you may drink some soda-water, and then have
done for the day. Continue that for some time, tak-
ing it at the distance of every six hours in the day.
He did so, and, egad, the man got well ; he seemed to
have frown young again ; he got quite active, and
really at was quite astonishing to see him. About three
months afterwards he asked me to dine with him; I
were, and saw him just at his old trick, stuffing most
enormous quantities of food into his mouth. After
dinner, we walked in the garden; he was a merchant,
and in the course of our walk I said to him,' Pray, Sir,
what would you think of a man, who from nothing had
raised a small capital, and who mit.a, if he chose to
go on, increase that into an idsmense fortune, but who
dial not choose to go on, but squandered that capital
away; what would you think of him?' Why, said
he, 4 I would say he was a d—d fool ;" then,' said I,
what one may think of wealth, another may think of
health, and thou act the man.' I say health is like
wealth, extremely difficult to get a little of ; but when
you have got it, and take care of it, it will increase, and
increase, too, with compound interest; but it is the na-
ture of man that he will net do well unless he is com-
pelled; and I believe you will find this to be the lesson
of human life. If people will not take care of health,
and do well from inclination, they will be obliged to do
it from compulsion; but there are those who will even
defy necessity, and those people go to the devil of
course."
SYMPATHY or THE HEART.—" There is a curious
thing with respect to the heart, shewing its sympathies
with the lungs. This is one of the curious experiments
that have been made. 11 an animal be ()idled, the me-
dulla spinalis divided high up, he dies; because the
lungs want energy, and the diaphragmatic flea ve has
its function abolished, and lie dies for want of breath.)
But let him be pithed, and respiration kept up by me-
chanical means—the inflatiun kept up—and life will go
on. Now, this is the expel iment of John Hunter, on
inventing a pair of bellows for drowned animals; I.e'
says, the nearest dependence of the bean is upon the
lungs, for' when I left off blowing my s (said
John), the bean left off its action; and when I began'
again to blow into the lungs, the heart recovered its
power of action, at first feebly, but after a little, more
strongly.' I use the words exactly as Mr. Hunter
uttered them. Now, I trust, all that nonsense is com-
pletely abolished; people say the cetebum has no in-
fluence upon the heart; but.l say, unquestionably, it
has a great 4.o:mace upon it, and I quote this instance
to shew it : suppose a timid person, or a delicate female,
hears a noise in the middle of the night, which she
suppcoes either to be a ghost or a robber? egad, her
pulsation fails, she gets cold, and is so alarmed as to
be almost dead. Suppose a fellow calls another person a
scoundrel ? the person who is so called feels his spirit
rising, his face grows red, and he takes up his fist and
knocks the other down. Now, it is very strange that
such a person as litchat should make the heart the seat
. of feeling, and the head merely the seat of thought. Why
he should. put his hand upon his heart to shew that that 's
the place of teeing, and his other hand upon his head to
denote that it's the place of thought, I don't know ; but
his head had no thought in it, I think, when he talked
such nonsense as that. You know that pleasant feelings
do produce a pleasant action, as Shakspeare said, ' My

bosom's lord sits lightly on its throne ; and that un-
easiness of mind has directly the converse effect. It is,
therefore, certainly the effect of the cerebrum that acts
upon these organs. I wonder it had not entered into
the wise head of some person to argue that the dia-
phragm was n't the seat of all these emotions. Shak-
speare seems to me to have most sensibly felt the seat
of these emotions--' Cans: thou not minister to a mind
diseased? }luck horn the mens ry a locoed sorrow?
rase out the wi turn 0 oubies t f th- bruin?' and so on;
you knot' the rest, I dare sa), but 1 don't. Well, nio
so much o ith respect to that; and so much notisztise
has been said o ith respect to it, that Il.ope it will Lever
•ation."

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