THE Ꭺ Ꭱ Ꭲ OF PRESERVING HEALTH. BOOK I. AIR. DAUGHTER of Pæon, queen of every joy, 'Hygeia, the goddess of health, was, according to the genealogy of the heathen deities, the daughter of Æsculapius; who, as well as Apollo, was distinguished by the name of Pæon. Confounded sink into the loathsome gloom, Or meagre famine breeds, or with slow wings The damp waste forest, motionless and rank, No rapture swells the breast, no poet sings, The best, and those of most extensive use; Nor should I wander doubtful of my way, Ye who amid this feverish world would wear A body free of pain, of cares a mind; Fly the rank city, shun its turbid air; Breathe not the chaos of eternal smoke And volatile corruption, from the dead, The dying, sickening, and the living world Exhaled, to sully heaven's transparent dome With dim mortality. It is not air That from a thousand lungs reeks back to thine, Sated with exhalations rank and fell, The spoil of dunghills, and the putrid thaw It is not air, but floats a nauseous mass |