Physicans know that there is a great degree of sympathy existing between the body and the mind; that they mutually affect each other; that the stomach is the principal medium of their reciprocal feelings; that when the sensations of this organ are comfortable, the mind is in an easy and pleasant state. A poor watery vegetable diet has the effect of exciting contrary feelings in the stomach, which are communicated to the mind: hence, it is depressed and anxious; hence, poor men generally have recourse to tobacco, which, being of a narcotic nature, deadens the sensations, and relieves the uneasiness both of the stomach, and of the mind depending on it; for which reason we see they would rather go without their food than their tobacco. Numbers of them fly to the use of spirituous liquors, which is the remedy precisely adapted to their case; and it is to be wondered at that drunkenness is not more frequent among them than it is.[1] But besides the uneasiness occasioned by those sensations, can they see with indifference their offspring perishing for the want of such things as they perceive around them, but which they cannot reach?[2] Can they see without pain the luxurious abundance of the rich, and compare it
- ↑ A dejection of spirits will rob the poor husbandman of the ease and comfort which he should feel when the labour of the day is ended.—Heberden's Comment., p. 220.
- ↑ Ἀγορὰν ἰδεῖν εὔοψον εὐποροῦντι μὲν
Ἥδιστον· ἂν δ’ ἀπορῇ τις, ἀθλιώτατον.
