I shall begin my observations upon the consumption, by remarking,
1. That it is unknown among the Indians in North-America.
2. It is scarcely known by those citizens of the United States, who live in the _first_ stage of civilized life, and who have lately obtained the title of the _first settlers_.
The principal occupations of the Indian consist in war, fishing, and hunting. Those of the first settler, are fishing, hunting, and the laborious employments of subduing the earth, cutting down forests, building a house and barn, and distant excursions, in all kinds of weather, to mills and courts, all of which tend to excite and preserve in the system, something like the Indian vigour of constitution.
3. It is less common in country places than in cities, and increases in both, with intemperance and sedentary modes of life.
4. Ship and house carpenters, smiths, and all those artificers whose business requires great exertions of strength in the _open_ air, in _all_ seasons of the year, are less subject to this disease, than men who work under cover, and at occupations which do not require the constant action of their limbs.
5. Women, who sit more than men, and whose work is connected with less exertion, are most subject to the consumption.
From these facts it would seem, that the most probable method of curing the consumption, is to revive in the constitution, by means of exercise or labour, that vigour which belongs to the Indians, or to mankind in their first stage of civilization.
The efficacy of these means of curing consumption will appear, when we inquire into the relative merit of the several remedies which have been used by physicians in this disease.
I shall not produce among these remedies the numerous receipts for syrups, boluses, electuaries, decoctions, infusions, pills, medicated waters, powders, draughts, mixtures, and diet-drinks, which have so long and so steadily been used in this disease; nor shall I mention as a remedy, the best accommodated diet, submitted to with the most patient self-denial; for not one of them all, without the aid of exercise, has ever, I believe, cured a single consumption.
1. SEA-VOYAGES have cured consumptions; but it has been only when they have been so long, or so frequent, as to substitute the long continuance of gentle, to violent degrees of exercise of a shorter duration, or where they have been accompanied by some degree of the labour and care of navigating the ship.