1808

Thomas Beddoes to Josiah Wedgwood, 9 January 1808

9 Jan 1808

Dear Wedgwood

I dare say that you can forestall my obs^ns on Mr Cline. It is a melancholy thing that medical men should differ so widely on the most palpable cases; for how are invalids and their friends to decide between them? It is more melancholy to see a man, who must have in his hands the fate of so many of the sick, labouring under such gross errors – Nobody will dispute Mr Cline’s first sentence But I can go with him no farther. The immediate cause of the softness of the bones must be the defective secretion of or the excessive absorption of the earthy phosphate – I deny that too little muscular exertion has any thing to do with this diseased action – for general observation does not countenance the opinion – nor are there any direct experiments to prove it – That such exercise as Mr Callum’s apparatus is fit for may excite the arteries to throw out more phosphate is possible but if it require the erect posture the evil of pressure on the spine as acknowledged by Mr Cline stands in the way – But I suppose a person lying down can draw up weights over a pulley –

I never met with an opinion more mischievous in its generality than that strength cannot be acquired ‘by inaction’ – In patients reduced by fever rest is necessary to the acquisition of strength. In softness of the bones it is so generally useful in this view that I never heard of an exception, & certainly I have always seen the very reverse – There is a degree of exertion that will recruit and another that will exhaust any person in health – In sickness very often much exertion exhausts & whether there are not disorders in which all exertion is directly or indirectly injurious can be learned only from observation – Mr Cline seems to me to confound every thing from having in his head certain metaphysical principles of physiology, which he applies at random –

I lay no stress upon the neck-swing – never having had experience of such a machine – the exercise if it can be made commodious w^d rather tend to make the spine strait, I should suppose –

I should imagine that Jos. must have a tendency to softness of the bones of his chest In that case I should think a good share of recumbency & a great share of friction w^d be useful to him – I have often heard from old women the very remark made by Mr Cline about opening the chest – I never saw it realized – I do not see how the breast bone is to be raised from its state of depression by drilling. But I constantly see that if you bring the substance of the bones to the healthy state, they take the healthy form of themselves. Jos may need a different diet or even medicine – his health & form may be improved by drilling, though not as Mr Cline presumes – There is here a man whose equal I have never seen. He is called a dancing-master. But his object seems to be to rectify the form, in judging of which he has so much correctness as an anatomist who had made this the study of his life – & his modes of correction always by the positions of the body are simple & efficacious – He has been practising upon 8-10 awkward & wry figures under my eye – This sort of drilling w^d probably do Jos most good – his coming to my children is quite a treat to them – Mrs Beddoes was overdone at Mr King’s & has been very ill indeed – & is now mending – She begs her best remembrances

I am Dear Wedgwood
yrs truly

Thomas Beddoes

Address: Josiah Wedgwood Esq / Etruria / Newcastle / Staffordshire
Endorsement: Dr Beddoes / 9 Jan 1808
MS: WE/EL/1/1/L40–7058