Health is that state of mind in which the body is not consciously present to us; the state in which work is easy and duty not too great a trial; the state in which it is a joy to see, to think, to feel, to be.Sir Andrew Clark.
Only by prolonged and arduous efforts has any considerable element of the public been educated to identify the early symptoms of serious organic disease.E. S. Cowles, M.D. (Address).
No one will be likely to dispute the statement that most people are unwell.Dr. E. V. McCollum. (Johns Hopkins, Newer Knowledge of Nutrition.)
Men who would blush over an imputation of ignorance respecting the fabled labors of a fabled demi-god, show not the slightest shame in confessing that they do not know where the Eustachian tubes are or what is the normal rate of pulsations–Herbert Spencer, in “Education.”
Ninety-five per cent of the deaths of mankind are from preventable diseases.Marion Sims, M.D. (Autobiography).
The therapeutics of old age is a relative phrase, as many are physiologically older at 50 than others at 80.A. Jacobi (Yale Review).
In searching for the obscure do not overlook the obvious. For one mistake made in not knowing ten are made by not looking.Lindsay’s Medical Axioms.
My attention has been frequently called to the frequency of artereo-sclerosis (impairment of the arteries) in persons who have been temperate in every respect except at table.Sir William Osier, Oxford University, formerly of Johns Hopkins.
The science of medicine has made greater advance in the last twenty years than in twenty centuries. The boy of today has twelve more years coming to him than his grandfather could expect at the same age. And death could be delayed five years more if every man and woman would undergo a rigid examination by a competent physician at the age of 47 and carefully abide by the directions of his medical advisor.Wm. J. Mayo, distinguished surgeon (digested).
One of the many marvels of the human body is the slowness with which Nature yields her defences against disease. The contest is generally a matter of years. In the long struggle to protect her own she would win the battle in a large percentage of cases if but slight assistance were given by the unintelligent sinner against the laws of health.Anonymous.
Abstinence is, one of the best of all remedies and alone cures without danger.-Celsus.
Consider how greatly ill health hinders the discharge of all dutiesmakes business often impossible and always more difficult; produces an irritability fatal to the right management of children; puts the functions of citizenship out of the question; and makes amusements a bore. Is it not clear that the physical sins which produce this ill-health make life a failure and a bur-den instead of a benefaction and a pleasure? In all cases a permanent damage is done; and, along with other such items which Nature in her strict account-keeping never drops, will tell against us to the shortening of our days. And if we call to mind how far the average duration of life falls below the possible duration, we see how immense is the loss. When to the numerous partial deductions which bad health entails, we add this great final deduction, it results that ordinarily more than one half of life is thrown away.Herbert Spencer, in “Education.”
While civilization has cost us dearly by increasing predisposing causes of disease, it is equally true that the same civilization has provided aids in prevention of disease that annually save many thousands of lives.Hobart Amory Hare, M.D., in New and Altered Forms of Disease.
Constipation is a disease of civilization. Wild men and wild animals do not suffer from this malady, which is perhaps responsible for more human misery and mental and moral disaster than any other single cause.John Harvey Kellogg, M.D., Battle Creek, Mich.
As showing how ignorance is the handmaid of disease, I once lived near a class of people who from religious belief excluded all meat and even eggs and milk from the dietary of their children. They were fed vegetables and the products of cereals. The result was the children were anemic and quickly succumbed to illness. There were no signs of vigor; they were always low in vitality. But that was not all. They were frightfully depraved. Nature had not sufficient material to perfect her higher development. Growing children need body building foods. They are often fed too great a proportion of sweets and starches. . . . Nor should the child any more than the plant, be overfed, particularly by unbalanced rations. What happens to the overfed plant in such a case? The root system, its foliage, its trunk, its whole body is impaired. It becomes engorged. Following this comes devitalization.Luther Burbank in Training the Human Plant.