An Inquiry into the Cause of Natural Death, or Death from Old Age. Developing a New and Certain Method of Preventing the Consolidation or Ossification of the Body, and of Thus Indefinitely Prolonging Vigorous, Elastic, and Buoyant Health; and of Rendering Parturition Easy and Safe.
New York: Stringer and Townsend, 1851. First Edition. Hard Cover. Good / No Jacket. Item #2012774
First edition. Boards stained along fore-edge, ink name on front endpapers.
viii, 152 pp. 12mo. Brown blind-stamped cloth, gilt titles. "Bostwick attributes aging's deleterious effects on the body to 'calcareous earthy matter' derived from food and drink that virtually hardens the tendons, ligaments, heart, muscles, blood vessels, etc. until the entire body, 'once elastic, healthy, active and lively... becomes rigid, diseased, feeble'. 'Life is extinguished by successive gradations,' Bostwick observes, 'and death is the last term in the succession.' Bostwick maintains that phosphate of lime is 'the solid earthy matter which by gradual accumulation in the body, brings on ossification, rigidity, decrepitude, and death'. This matter is introduced into every cell and fibre of the body by food and drink, the most notorious of which are salt, grains, food additives (e.g., chalk, gypsum, bone ash), river and spring water, etc. Bostwick recommends foods low in 'calcareous matter,' such as fruits, vegetables, fish, fowls and game (but not the flesh of domesticated cattle whose feed contains high levels of dangerous solids). He concludes, 'in proportion as individuals, classes, or even nations, subsist upon aliment containing the smallest proportion of earth elements, do they prevent or retard the process of consolidation, maintain a state of health and activity, and prolong their existence'. This was the only edition of Bostwick's Inquiry."
Price: $100.00