DESIGNED FOR
COLLEGES, ACADEMIES, AND FAMILIES.
BY CALVIN CUTTER, M.D.
WITH ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ENGRAVINGS.
REVISED STEREOTYPE EDITION.
NEW YORK:
CLARK, AUSTIN AND SMITH.
CINCINNATI:—W. B. SMITH & CO.
ST. LOUIS, MO.:—KEITH & WOODS.
1858.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by
CALVIN CUTTER, M. D.,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
| C. A. ALVORD, Printer, No. 15 Vandewater Street, N. Y. |
Agesilaus, king of Sparta, when asked what things boysshould learn, replied, “Those which they will practise whenthey become men.” As health requires the observance ofthe laws inherent to the different organs of the human system,so not only boys, but girls, should acquire a knowledge of thelaws of their organization. If sound morality depends uponthe inculcation of correct principles in youth, equally so doesa sound physical system depend on a correct physical educationduring the same period of life. If the teacher andparents who are deficient in moral feelings and sentiments,are unfit to communicate to children and youth those highmoral principles demanded by the nature of man, so are theyequally incompetent directors of the physical training of theyouthful system, if ignorant of the organic laws and the physiologicalconditions upon which health and disease depend.
For these reasons, the study of the structure of the humansystem, and the laws of the different organs, are subjects ofinterest to all,—the young and the old, the learned and theunlearned, the rich and the poor. Every scholar, and particularlyevery young miss, after acquiring a knowledge of theprimary branches,—as spelling, reading, writing, and arithmetic,—shouldlearn the structure of the human system, and6the conditions upon which health and disease depend, as thisknowledge will be required in practice in after life.
“It is somewhat unaccountable,” says Dr. Dick, “and nota little inconsistent, that while we direct the young to lookabroad over the surface of the earth, and survey its mountains,rivers, seas, and continents, and guide their views tothe regions of the firmament, where they may contemplatethe moons of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, and thousands ofluminaries placed at immeasurable distances, ... that weshould never teach them to look into themselves; to considertheir own corporeal structures, the numerous parts of whichthey are composed, the admirable functions they perform, thewisdom and goodness displayed in their mechanism, and thelessons of practical instruction which may be derived fromsuch contemplations.”
Again he says, “One great practical end which shouldalways be kept in view in the study of physiolo