Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-08-01
price Two Ce nts.
abe 4ailg SPY.
TUESDAY, AUGUST /, 1854.


have created in the beginning, such men anC
women as we find the human race, in theil
physical condition, now to be- Examine the
book of Genesis, which contains the earliest
annals of the human family. As is commons
ly supposed, it comprises the first 1859 years
of human history With a childlike simplic-
ity, this book describes the infancy of man
kind. Unlike modern histories, it details tho
minutest circumstances of social and individ-
ual life. Indeed it is rather series of biog-
raphies than a history. The false delicacy of
modern times did not forbid the mention Of
whatever was done or suffered. And yet,
over all that expanse of time-for more than
one-third part of the duration of the human
race-not single instance is recorded, of
child, born blind or deaf, or dumb, or idiotic,'
or malformcd in any way During the whole
period, not single case of natural death in
infancy, or childhood, or early manhood, or
even of middle manhood is to be found. Not
one man or woman died of disease. The
simple record is sand he died." or he died,
sin good old age, and full of years" or, no
was sold and full of days" No epidemic,
nor endemic disease prevailed, showing that
they died the natural death of healthy men,
and not the unnatural death of distempered
ones Through all this time Except in the
single case Of Job, in his age, and then only
for day or two before his death) it does not
appear that any man was i'll, or that any old
lady or young lady ever tainted. Bodily pain
from disease is nowhere mentioned. No chol-
era iniantum, scarlatina, measles, small pox
not even toothache So extraordinary
thing was it for a son to die before his father,
that an instance of it is deemed worthy of
special notice; and this first case of the re-
versal of natures law was 1000 years after
the creation of Adam. See how this reversal
sc L., lr.c g.. Al.
for how rare is it now Tor all the children Of
family to survive the parents.-Rachel died
at the birth of Benjamin but this is the only
case of puerperal death mentioned in the first
2,400 years of sacred history and even this
happened during the fatigues of a patriarchal
journey, when passengers were not waited
along in the saloons of railcar or steamboat.
Had Adam, think you tuberculous lungsi
Was Eve fiat chested, or did she cultivate the
serpentine, line of grace i'll curved spine
Did Nimrod get up in the morning with
furred tongue or was he tormented with the
dyspepsia? Had Esau the govt or hepatitis
Imagine how the tough old Patriarchs would
have looked at being asked to subscribe for
lying in hospital, or an asylum for lunatics,
or an eye and ear infirmary, or a school for
idiots or deaf mutes What would their eagle
vision and swift footedness have said to the
project of blind asylum or an orthopedic es-
Enlistment: Did they suffer any of these
revenges Of nature against civilization No
Man came from the hand of God so perfect in
his bodily organs, so defiant of heat and cold,
OF drought and humidity, 50 surcharged with
vital force, that it took more than two thou
sand years of the combined denominations of
appetite and ignorance; it took successive
ages of outrageous excess and debauchery, to
drain of his electric energies and make him
even accessible to disease and then it took
ages more to breed all these vile distempers
which now nestle, like vermln, in every or
| gan aud fibre of our bodies
During all this time, however, the fatal
causes were at work, which wore away and
finally exhausted the glorious and Astounding
| vigor of the pristine race. At least as early
as the third generation from Adam, polygamy
began. Intermarriages were all along the
order of the day. Even Abraham married his
half sister. The basest harlotry was not be-
meath one of the Patriarchs. Whole peoples,
| like the Moabites and Amorites, were the di-
! rect fruit of combined drunkenness and incest
| between father and daughters. The highest
pleasures and forces of the races gradually
narrowed down into appetite and incontinence.
AT length, its history became almost too
shocking to be referred to. If its greatest
men, its wisest men, its God favored men,
AAe DdFlu, cou1u DC guilty Oh murder tor the
sake of adultery, or, like Solomon, could
keep seraglio of thousand wives and con-
cubines, what blackness can be black enough
to paint the portraits of the people they ruled
and the children they begat
After the Exodus, excuses rapidly devel-
oped into diseases. First came cutaneous
distempers-leprosy, boils, elephantiasis &C.,
the common effort of nature to throw visceral
impurities to the surface. AS early as King
Asa, that royal malady, the govt, had been
invented. Then came consumpkions, and the
burning ague, and disorders Of the visceral
organs, and pestilences, or as the Bible ex-
expresses it, I" great plaques and of long con-
tinuance;' until, in the time of Christ, we
see how diseases of all kinds had become the
common lot of mankind, by the crowds that
looked to Him to be healed. And SO fright
fully, so disgracefully numerous have diseases
now become, that if we were to write down
their names, in the smallest legble hand, on
the smallest bits of paper, there would not be
room enough on the human body to paste the
labels.-Ertract from Horace Names Inan-
gural ADDRESS.