. Annals of medical history. greata loss. As men w-ho feelthemselves weakened by a long series of in-disposition, give themselves up at last to themercy of medicine, and submit to certain rulesof living, which they are for the future never totransgress; so he who retires, w-eary of, and dis-gusted, with the common way of living, oughtto model this new one he enters into, by therules of reason, and to institute and establishit by premeditation, and after the best methodhe can contrive. (Of Solitude.) My chiefest care in choosing my lodgings, isalways to avoid a thick and foul air; and thosebeau
. Annals of medical history. greata loss. As men w-ho feelthemselves weakened by a long series of in-disposition, give themselves up at last to themercy of medicine, and submit to certain rulesof living, which they are for the future never totransgress; so he who retires, w-eary of, and dis-gusted, with the common way of living, oughtto model this new one he enters into, by therules of reason, and to institute and establishit by premeditation, and after the best methodhe can contrive. (Of Solitude.) My chiefest care in choosing my lodgings, isalways to avoid a thick and foul air; and thosebeautiful cities of Venice and Paris, have verymuch lessened the kindness I had for them, theone by the offensive smell of her marshes, andthe other of her dirt. (Of Smells). Two centuries later Dickens, in a similarvein, has a fling at Cologne. Montaigne recognizes the existence ofremedies in nature. I very well know there are some simplesthat moisten and others that dry, I experiment-ally know that radishes are windy and senna. ■d in 1823. leaves purging ... I very much honor thatglorious name (physic) and the end it is studiedfor and what it promises to the service of man-kind; but what it foists upon us I neither honornor can esteem. In the first place experiencemakes me dread it; for amongst all my acquaint-ance, I sec no race of people so soon sick and solong before they are well as those who takemuch physic. Here follows the charge that physiciansactually seek to corrupt health itself for Montaigne and Medicine 265 fear men should at any time escape theirauthority. It is terrible but true. The doctorwho calls bronchitis, pneumonia, indi-gestion, an ulcer of the stomach; talksof warding off a disease or accident thatwould infallibly have supervened but forhis timely presence, who tells a patient hewas threatened with this or that awfuldisease, may not be as common today as hewas in Montaignes time but ho is with usstill. Montaignes attitude to medicine He offers a historica
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidannal, booksubjectmedicine
