Catechism of Health. London: C. Dilly, 1794. (Cotsen 153738)

In 1794 Bernard Christian Faust (1755-1842), the court physician in the German principality of Schaumberg-Lippe, published a book to teach children the principles of healthy living.  His Gesundheits Katechismus zu Gebrauche in den Schulen und beym häuslichen Unterrichte caught on quickly.  It was translated the same year into English by John Henry Basse as A Catechism of Health.   A Dublin edition also came out in 1794.  The 1797 Edinburgh edition was prefaced with a  the eminent physician James Gregory’s recommendation of it as the best extant popular work of medicine he had seen.  It also found a receptive public in America.

Cotsen just acquired a copy of the first English translation, illustrated with a frontispiece of a boy in a long night shirt.  But it is not sleep ware.  Faust argued that such a garment was better for growing bodies than a corseted bodice and skirts.  He claimed that less confining clothes allowed the body to  “become healthier, stronger, taller, and more beautiful; children will learn the best and most graceful attitudes; and will feel themselves very well and happy in this simple and free garment.”

Faust had equally strong opinions about what children should eat and drink.  Or not drink. Notice that Faust drops the question-and-answer format and delivers a lecture directly to children about the dangers of consuming strong spirits.  His vehemence on the subject of alcohol makes one wonder just  how widespread underage drinking was during the late Enlightenment…

Here is an excerpt from the section on brandy:

Some of Faust’s other recommendations seem downright peculiar today.  For example, he did not consider potatoes nutritious, cautioning his readers that “when eaten too often, or immoderately, prove hurtful to health, and to the mental faculties.” But undoubtedly plenty of advice in twenty-first century books on childcare and parenting that will strike later generations as just as ill-informed or quixotic!