The Henson Journals

[229][sic]

Tuesday, August 19th, 1930.

["]It is worth observing, how nature hath taught all living creatures to be their own physicians: the same power that gave them a being hath led them to the means of their own preservation. No Indian is so savage but that he knows the use of his tobacco and contra–yerva. Yea, even the brute creatures are bred with this skill: the dog, when he is stomach–sick, can go right to his proper grass…… As for the reasonable creature, in all the civilized regions of the world, we may well say now of every nation, as it was of old said of Egypt, that it is a country of physicians. There is not an housewife but hath an apothecary's shop in her garden, which affords here those receipts whereby she heals the ails of her complaining family. Only mankind is mortally soul–sick, & naturally neither knows nor seeks nor cares for remedy.["]

Bishop Hall 'Select Thoughts', 1647

[Works – vii. P. 594]

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