The Code of Health and Longevity Author:John Sinclair Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: mankind, from the superior knowledge which greater experience and longer observation generally furnish, what can be more important, than to endeavour to preserve... more » our health and strength, that we may be the better enabled to perform beneficial and useful actions to our fellow-creatures ? For, THE POWER OF DOING GOOD, IS THE CHIEF OBJECT FOR WHICH EXISTENCE IS DESIRABLE. It is the more necessary that the attention of the public should be frequently directed to these most interesting subjects, because men, when living in an artificial or civilized state, are more apt to become unhealthy, and to perish at an earlier age than in a more simple state of society. In periods of civilization and luxury, it frequently happens, that men have been bred up with too great indulgence ; that their food is less wholesome; and that fermented liquors, or ardent spirits, are taken in destructive quantities. In great cities, the rich neglect to take regular exercise; are improperly clothed, out of caprice or fashion ; and are in some measure obliged, by the force of prevailing custom, if they wish to live in society, to follow, in regard both to food and rest, the pernicious practice of late and irregular hours. On the other hand, the poor are crowded in mean houses, use unwholesome food, and are employed in various unhealthy occupations, the sources of numerous complaints. As the intercourse of nations also becomes more frequent, all ranks are subject to a number of infectious disorders ; and from an ardent desire, at all hazards, of acquiring wealth, great numbers are induced to reside in unhealthy climates, amidst disease and contagion. In civilized society, likewise, there is an additional source of debility and disease, from the chapter{Section 4influence -which the mind has upon the body...« less