|
`` Thou whose power and goodness can `` enlarge the faculties of thy creatures to `` this infinite degree of excellence and `` perfection, -- What have we MOON- `` ITES done ?'' WITH two strokes, the one at Hippocrates, the other at Lord Verulam, did my father atchieve it. The stroke at the prince of physicians, with which he began, was no more than a short insult upon his sorrowful com- plaint of the Ars longa, -- and Vita brevis. ---- Life short, cried my father, -- and the art of healing tedious ! And who are we to thank for both, the one and the other, but the ignorance of quacks them- selves, -- and the stage-loads of chymical nostrums, and peripatetic lumber, with which |
|
which in all ages, they have first flatter'd the world, and at last deceived it. ---- O my lord Verulam ! cried my father, turning from Hippocrates, and making his second stroke at him, as the principal of nostrum-mongers, and the fittest to be made an example of to the rest, ---- What shall I say to thee, my great lord Verulam ? What shall I say to thy internal spirit, -- thy opium, -- thy salt-petre, ---- thy greasy unctions, -- thy daily purges, -- thy nightly glisters, and succedaneums ? ---- My father was never at a loss what to say to any man, upon any sub- ject ; and had the least occasion for the exordium of any man breathing : how he dealt with his lordship's opinion, ---- you shall see ; ---- but when, -- I know not : ---- we must first see what his lord- ship's opinion was. C H A P. |
|
`` THE two great causes, which `` conspire with each other to `` shorten life, says lord Verulam, are `` first ---- `` The internal spirit, which like a gen- `` tle flame, wastes the body down to death : `` -- And secondly, the external air, that `` parches the body up to ashes : -- which `` two enemies attacking us on both sides `` of our bodies together, at length de- `` stroy our organs, and render them `` unfit to carry on the functions of life.'' This being the state of the case ; the road to Longevity was plain ; nothing more being required, says his lordship, but |
|
but to repair the waste committed by the internal spirit, by making the substance of it more thick and dense, by a regu- lar course of opiates on one side, and by refrigerating the heat of it on the other, by three grains and a half of salt-petre every morning before you got up. ---- Still this frame of ours was left ex- posed to the inimical assaults of the air without ; -- but this was fenced off again by a course of greasy unctions, which so fully saturated the pores of the skin, that no spicula could enter ; ---- nor could any one get out. ---- This put a stop to all perspiration, sensible and insen- sible, which being the cause of so many scurvy distempers -- a course of glisters was requisite to carry off redundant hu- mours, -- and render the system compleat. What |
|
What my father had to say to my lord of Verulam's opiates, his salt-petre, and greasy uncrions and glisters, you shall read, -- but not today -- or to mor- row : time presses upon me, -- my reader is impatient -- I must get forwards. ---- You shall read the chapter at your lei- sure, (if you chuse it) as soon as ever the Tristrapædia is published. ------ Sufficeth it at present, to say, my fa- ther levelled the hypothesis with the ground, and in doing that, the learned know, he built up and established his own. ---- C H A P. |
|
THE whole secret of health, said my father, beginning the sentence again, depending evidently upon the due contention betwixt the radical heat and radical moisture within us ; -- the least imaginable skill had been sufficient to have maintained it, had not the school- men confounded the task, merely (as Van Helmont, the famous chymist, has proved) by all along mistaking the ra- dical moisture for the tallow and fat of animal bodies. Now the radical moisture is not the tallow or fat of animals, but an oily and balsamous substance ; for the fat and tallow, as also the phlegm or watery parts |
|
parts are cold ; whereas the oily and bal- samous parts are of a lively heat and spi- rit, which accounts for the observation of Aristotle, `` Quod omne animal post `` coitum est triste.'' Now it is certain, that the radical heat lives in the radical moisture, but whether vice versâ, is a doubt : however, when the one decays, the other decays also ; and then is produced, either an unnatu- ral heat, which causes an unnatural dry- ness ---- or an unnatural moisture, which causes dropsies. ---- So that if a child, as he grows up, can but be taught to avoid running into fire or water, as either of 'em threaten his destruction, ---- 'twill be all that is needful to be done upon that head. ---- C H A P. |
|
THE description of the siege of Je- richo itself, could not have engag- ed the attention of my uncle Toby more powerfully than the last chapter ; -- his eyes were fixed upon my father, through- out it ; -- he never mentioned radical heat and radical moisture, but my uncle Toby took his pipe out of his mouth, and shook his head ; and as soon as the chapter was finished, he beckoned to the corporal to come close to his chair, to ask him the following question, -- aside. ---- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *. It was at the siege of Limerick, an' please your ho- nour, replied the corporal, making a bow. The |
|
The poor fellow and I, quoth my un- cle Toby, addressing himself to my fa- ther, were scarce able to crawl out of our tents, at the time the siege of Limerick was raised, upon the very account you mention. ---- Now what can have got into that precious noddle of thine, my dear brother Toby ? cried my father, mentally. ---- By Heaven ! continued he, communing still with himself, it would puzzle an OEdipus to bring it in point. ---- I believe, an' please your honour, quoth the corporal, that if it had not been for the quantity of brandy we set fire to every night, and the claret and cinnamon with which I plyed your ho- nour off; -- And the geneva, Trim, added my uncle Toby, which did us more good than all ---- I verily believe, continued the |
|
the corporal, we had both, an' please your honour, left our lives in the trenches, and been buried in them too. ---- The noblest grave, corporal ! cried my uncle Toby, his eyes sparkling as he spoke, that a soldier could wish to lie down in. ---- But a pitiful death for him ! an' please your honour, replied the corporal. All this was as much Arabick to my father, as the rites of the Colchi and Tro- glodytes had been before to my uncle Toby; my father could not determine whether he was to frown or smile. ---- My uncle Toby, turning to Yorick, resumed the case at Limerick, more in- telligibly than he had begun it, -- and so settled the point for my father at once. VOL. V. K C H A P. |
|
IT was undoubtedly, said my uncle Toby, a great happiness for myself and the corporal, that we had all along a burning fever, attended with a most raging thirst, during the whole five and twenty days the flux was upon us in the camp ; otherwise what my brother calls the radical moisture, must, as I con- ceive it, inevitably have got the better. ---- My father drew in his lungs top- full of air, and looking up, blew it forth again, a s slowly as he possibly could. ---- ------ It was heaven's mercy to us, continued my uncle Toby, which put it into the corporal's head to maintain that due |
|
due contention betwixt the radical heat and the radical moisture, by reinforce- ing the fever, as he did all along, with hot wine and spices ; whereby the cor- poral kept up (as it were) a continual firing, so that the radical heat stood its ground from the beginning to the end, and was a fair match for the moisture, terrible as it was. ---- Upon my honour, added my uncle Toby, you might have heard the contention within our bodies, brother Shandy, twenty toises. -- If there was no firing, said Yorick. Well -- said my father, with a full as- piration, and pausing a while after the word ---- Was I a judge, and the laws of the country which made me one permitted it, I would condemn some of the worst malefactors, provided they K 2 had |
|
had had their clergy ----- ---- ---- ---- Yorick foreseeing the sentence was likely to end with no sort of mercy, laid his hand upon my father's breast, and begged he would respite it for a few minutes, till he asked the corporal a question. ---- Prithee, Trim, said Yorick, without staying for my father's leave, -- tell us honestly -- what is thy opinion concerning this self-same radical heat and radical moisture ? With humble submission to his ho- nour's better judgment, quoth the cor- poral, making a bow to my uncle Toby -- Speak thy opinion freely, corporal, said my uncle Toby. -- The poor fellow is my servant, -- not my slave, -- added my uncle Toby, turning to my fa- ther. ---- The |
|
The corporal put his hat under his left arm, and with his stick hanging upon the wrist of it, by a black thong split into a tassel about the knot, he marched up to the ground where he had performed his catechism ; then touching his under jaw with the thumb and fingers of his right hand before he opened his mouth, ---- he delivered his notion thus. JUST as the corporal was humming, to begin -- in waddled Dr. Slop. -- 'Tis not two-pence matter -- the corpo- ral shall go on in the next chapter, let who will come in. ---- Well, my good doctor, cried my fa- ther sportively, for the transitions of his K 3 passions |
|
passions were unaccountably sudden, -- and what has this whelp of mine to say to the matter ? ---- Had my father been asking after the amputation of the tail of a puppy-dog -- he could not have done it in a more careless air : the system which Dr. Slop had laid down, to treat the accident by, no way allowed of such a mode of en- quiry. -- He sat down. Pray, Sir, quoth my uncle Toby, in a manner which could not go unanswered, -- in what condition is the boy ? -- 'Twill end in a phimosis, replied Dr. Slop. I am no wiser than I was, quoth my uncle Toby, -- returning his pipe into his mouth. ---- Then let the corporal go on, said |
|
said my father, with his medical lecture. -- The corporal made a bow to his old friend, Dr. Slop, and then delivered his opinion concerning radical heat and ra- dical moisture, in the following words. THE city of Limerick, the siege of which was begun under his maje- sty king William himself, the year after I went into the army -- lies, an' please your honours, in the middle of a devilish wet, swampy country. -- 'Tis quite sur- rounded, said my uncle Toby, with the Shannon, and is, by its situation, one of the strongest fortified places in Ire- land. ---- K 4 I think |
|
I think this is a new fashion, quoth Dr. Slop, of beginning a medical lecture. -- 'Tis all true, answered Trim. -- Then I wish the faculty would follow the cut of it, said Yorick. -- 'Tis all cut through, an' please your reverence, said the cor- poral, with drains and bogs ; and be- sides, there was such a quantity of rain fell during the siege, the whole country was like a puddle, -- 'twas that, and nothing else, which brought on the flux, and which had like to have killed both his honour and myself ; now there was no such thing, after the first ten days, continued the corporal, for a sol- dier to lie dry in his tent, without cut- ting a ditch round it, to draw off the water ; -- nor was that enough, for those who could afford it, as his honour could, without setting fire every night to |
|
to a pewter dish full of brandy, which took off the damp of the air, and made the inside of the tent as warm as a stove. ------ And what conclusion dost thou draw, Corporal Trim, cried my father, from all these premises ? I infer, an' please your worship, re- plied Trim, that the radical moisture is nothing in the world but ditch-water -- and that the radical heat, of those who can go to the expense of it, is burnt brandy -- the radical heat and moisture of a private man, an' please your ho- nours, is nothing but ditch-water -- and a dram of geneva ---- and give us but enough of it, with a pipe of tobacco, to give us spirits, and drive away the va- 1 pours |
|
pours -- we know not what it is to fear death. I am at a loss, Captain Shandy, quoth Dr. Slop, to determine in which branch of learning your servant shines most, whether in physiology, or divinity. -- Slop had not forgot Trim's comment upon the sermon. -- It is but an hour ago, replied Yorick, since the corporal was examined in the latter, and pass'd muster with great honour. ---- The radical heat and moisture, quoth Dr. Slop, turning to my father, you must know, is the basis and foundation of our being, -- as the root of a tree is the source and principle of its vegeta- tion. -- |
|
tion. -- It is inherent in the seeds of all animals, and may be preserved sundry ways, but principally in my opinion by consubstantials, impriments, and occludents. ---- Now this poor fellow, continued Dr. Slop, pointing to the corporal, has had the misfortune to have heard some superficial empiric discourse upon this nice point. ---- That he has, -- said my father. ---- Very likely, said my uncle. -- I'm sure of it -- quoth Yorick. ---- DOCTOR Slop being called out to look at a cataplasm he had order- ed, it gave my father an opportunity of going on with another chapter in the Tristra-pædia. ---- Come ! chear up, my lads ; |