The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne (pdf e book reader txt) 📕

With two strokes, the one at Hippocrates, the other at Lord Verulam, did my father achieve it.

The stroke at the prince of physicians, with which he began, was no more than a short insult upon his sorrowful complaint 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 themselves,⁠—and the stage-loads of chymical nostrums, and peripatetic lumber, with 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 saltpetre,⁠⸺⁠thy greasy unctions,⁠—thy daily purges,⁠—thy nightly clysters, and succedaneums?

⸺⁠My father was never at a loss what to say to any man, upon any subject; 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 lordship’s opinion was.

“The two great causes, which conspire with each other to shorten life, says lord Verulam, are first⁠⸺⁠

“The internal spirit, which, like a gentle 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 destroy 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 to repair the waste committed by the internal spirit, by making the substance of it more thick and dense, by a regular course of opiates on one side, and by refrigerating the heat of it on the other, by three grains and a half of saltpetre every morning before you got up.⁠⸺⁠

Still this frame of ours was left exposed 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 insensible, which being the cause of so many scurvy distempers⁠—a course of clysters was requisite to carry off redundant humours,⁠—and render the system complete.

What my father had to say to my lord of Verulam’s opiates, his saltpetre, and greasy unctions and clysters, you shall read,⁠—but not today⁠—or tomorrow: time presses upon me,⁠—my reader is impatient⁠—I must get forwards.⁠⸺⁠You shall read the chapter at your leisure (if you choose it), as soon as ever the Tristra-pædia is published.⁠⸺⁠

Sufficeth it at present, to say, my father levelled the hypothesis with the ground, and in doing that, the learned know, he built up and established his own.⁠⸺⁠

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 schoolmen confounded the talk, merely (as Van Helmont, the famous chymist, has proved) by all along mistaking the radical 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, are cold; whereas the oily and balsamous parts are of a lively heat and spirit, 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 versa, is a doubt: however, when the one decays, the other decays also; and then is produced, either an unnatural heat, which causes an unnatural dryness⁠⸺⁠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.⁠⸺⁠

The description of the siege of Jericho itself, could not have engaged the attention of my uncle Toby more powerfully than the last chapter;⁠—his eyes were fixed upon my father throughout 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 honour, replied the corporal, making a bow.

The poor fellow and I, quoth my uncle Toby, addressing himself to my father, 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 honour off;⁠—And the geneva, Trim, added my uncle Toby, which did us more good than all⁠⸺⁠I verily believe, continued 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.

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