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Chapter 3. Prescribing Prevention
- University of Massachusetts Press
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67 3 PRESCRIBING PREVENTION The purpose of therapeutic or remedy advice was to restore a healthy equilibrium to a body that had fallen out of balance. The purpose of regimen advice, however, was to maintain a healthy balance by espousing a way of life that would protect the body from a variety of potential dangers. Of the general almanacs consulted for this study, 16 percent include regimen advice of one kind or another.1 During the second half of the eighteenth century, however, regimen advice appeared in 25 percent of the almanacs consulted. Although fewer almanacs included regimen guidance than astrological and therapeutic advice, this does not necessarily mean that almanac makers or almanac readers were less concerned about prevention. When pondering the amount of regimen advice in general almanacs, one must consider accessibility, the objectives of almanac makers, and the expectations of readers. Regimen guidance that appeared in American almanacs between 1750 and 1860, unlike astrological health advice, was available to American readers in several other genres of popular print, including the specialized almanacs that began appearing in increasing numbers during the antebellum period (see chapter 4). Almanac makers endeavored to attract the widest possible audience. Their core audience, however, was made up of literate and semi-literate artisans, farmers, and laborers who tended to live in a rural environment where they were more culturally isolated than urban dwellers. They would not have had the leisure to contemplate and alter their style of life, preferring health advice that was practical and immediate—remedies that would restore their health so they could resume productive daily lives. 68 PRESCRIBING PREVENTION The connection between health and long life, on one hand, and personal behavior, on the other, was an important part of Hippocratic medicine and was later popularized in print by scores of works on proper living, most notably those of Luigi Cornaro and George Cheyne. These publications, which offered advice on the preservation of health but rarely on treatment, emphasized the six Galenic “non-naturals”: air, food and drink, sleeping and waking, exercise and rest, the evacuations, and the passions of the mind. Regulation of the non-naturals was essential to living in harmony with the laws of physiology or God’s natural laws. Abuse of one or more of the non-naturals could result in humoral imbalance that could cause disease or even death; thus moderation—or temperance, as it was then broadly defined—was requisite to a healthy and long life.2 These regimen texts were to be read (presumably by af- fluent readers who had time for contemplating their health) but not actively applied, unlike many of the domestic health guides discussed in the previous chapter.3 The latter belonged to another traditional category of lay medical publications that evolved in much the same way as regimen texts and almanacs. Domestic medical health guides of the period, such as those of Nicholas Culpeper and John Wesley, contain, for the most part, descriptions of a variety of diseases and directions for treating them. Works in this category were most likely intended for an audience similar to the core readership of general almanacs, individuals who could not afford the services of a physician and for whom an extended illness could spell economic disaster.4 The most popular lay health publication in early America was William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine. The key factor in Buchan’s extraordinary success, according to Charles Rosenberg, was that he combined in one book the regimen and longevity tradition with the home treatment tradition. Thus, it is not surprising that several of the most successful almanac makers and publishers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in their attempts to reach a wider audience of readers, offered both categories of health advice—sometimes by providing extracts from Buchan’s works. Isaiah Thomas, for example, offered readers therapeutic advice to restore their health as well as regimen guidance to preserve it. His 1781 annual includes an example of the latter, an extract from “an excellent” but unnamed author titled “The Art of Preserving Health,” which addresses the critical importance of moderation in maintaining the body’s delicate balance: “The whole art of preserving health may be said to consist of filling up what is deficient, and emptying what is re- [54.85.255.74] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 05:35 GMT) PRESCRIBING PREVENTION 69 dundant, that the body may be kept in its natural state; and therefore all the supplies from eating and...