A gallery of mouth-breathers adorns the cover of this strange work by George Catlin
Among the collection of works on hygiene and general health that the Francis A. Countway Medical Library has submitted to the Medical Heritage Library, one finds an eclectic mixture of theory and practice advocating everything from the reformation of cemetery burial to the donning of proper footwear; from water cures to treatment of diseases attendant to sedentary office life in the early 19th century. Through a simple subject search one can peer directly into a world where publishers and authors were attempting (often misguidedly) to apply the burgeoning scientific approaches of the day to every aspect of human health, with widely differing results. This work, which is dedicated to “the nervous and bilious,” promises to educate readers about the “art of invigorating and prolonging life by food, clothes, air, exercise, wine [and] sleep,” but nevertheless ends, somewhat ominously, with an extended section devoted to “the pleasures of making a will.”
George Catlin (1796-1872), was a painter and writer who traveled the country with General William Clark (of Lewis & Clark fame), among others. He gained international fame for his portraiture of the indigenous tribes he encountered during those expeditions, but he also wrote several books on the topic of “mouth breathing,” in which he contrasted respiration practices of Native and non-native Americans in order to support his ideas about the important role played by proper breathing methods in human hygiene.
In one such book, titled Shut your mouth and save your life, he writes fondly of the many so-called savage tribes encountered during his travels. And, noting that these native tribes seemed to have no “fools (idiots), no deaf and dumb, and no hunchbacks,” among them, Catlin draws a direct link between their “closed-mouth” sleeping practices and their physical constitutions, which he perceived to be unusually strong. It follows, then, that he goes on to ascribe many of the ailments of “civilized” peoples to an epidemic of deleterious, open-mouth breathing, especially during sleep:
The mouth of man, as well as that of the brutes, was made for the reception and mastication of food for the stomach, and other purposes; but the nostrils, with their delicate and fibrous linings for purifying and warming the air in its passage, have been mysteriously constructed, and designed to stand guard over the lungs — to measure the air and equalize its draughts during the hours of repose . . .
It is a well-known fact that fishes will die in a few moments, in their own element, with their mouths kept open by the hook; and I strongly doubt whether a horse or an ox
Catlin's own drawings, which somewhat dramatically contrast the health, happiness, and well being of open- and closed-mouth sleepers.
would live any length of time with its mouth fastened open with a block of wood during the accustomed hours of its repose; and I believe that the derangement of the system by such an experiment would be similar to that in the human frame, and that death would be sooner and more certain; and I believe, also, that if the American Races of Savages which I have visited, had treated this subject with the same indifference and abuse, they would long since have lost (if not have ceased to exist) that decided advantage which they now hold, over the Civilized Races, in manly beauty and symmetry of physical conformation; and that their Bills of Mortality would exhibit a much nearer approximation to those of Civilized communities than they now do.
Readers can find a selection of books about hygiene and other topics, including works by George Catlin, here, or by using other, more specific subject and keyword searches on the MHL advanced search page.
Cross-posted from the Center for the History of Medicine blog.