How do I find a very old book? It says available for free.

Not dead yet!

Well-Known Member
So I'm looking for the "usually available for free from the publisher" book described here (it's pub date is in the 1800s) -- https://www.alibris.com/The-Health-Resorts-of-Europe-Thomas-Linn/book/11710589?matches=7

I'll warn that if you love old books, Alibris is the place in my opinion. However, it has multiple listings for the same thing, and sublistings for each one, so finding the right price can be tricky.

This book description says something that I've often seen mentioned, but it is not clear how you find it. That old books, out of copyright, are often scanned and are "freely available" ...but when I try to find them, and I simply cannot. This time the book description says so, but doesn't even tell you who the publisher is so again I'm stuck.

I've tried project gutenberg, but their search seems extremely arcane. Any help is appreciated!
 

Merry

Well-Known Member
So I'm looking for the "usually available for free from the publisher" book described here (it's pub date is in the 1800s) -- https://www.alibris.com/The-Health-Resorts-of-Europe-Thomas-Linn/book/11710589?matches=7

I'll warn that if you love old books, Alibris is the place in my opinion. However, it has multiple listings for the same thing, and sublistings for each one, so finding the right price can be tricky.

This book description says something that I've often seen mentioned, but it is not clear how you find it. That old books, out of copyright, are often scanned and are "freely available" ...but when I try to find them, and I simply cannot. This time the book description says so, but doesn't even tell you who the publisher is so again I'm stuck.

I've tried project gutenberg, but their search seems extremely arcane. Any help is appreciated!

The book is at Google Books:

https://books.google.com/books?id=r... health resorts of europe thomas linn&f=false
 

Not dead yet!

Well-Known Member
Well I may have to go that far to get help. I found the book, and found a 7th edition print version that still exists. Very amusing to read, it's like a magazine with advertisements, and some articles written by the author to explain the ads. Another thing doctors today aren't allowed to do. I feel like doctors have been hamstrung by "policies" and that we're in a second dark ages. I'm seeking after what doctors did before the current darkness fell.

Previously, it was priests who made it "wrong" to disseminate information. They even thought mathematics was evil. Our idea of what people in the middle ages knew (that they were unschooled and dumb) is because of these taboos the priests created. In the history of Eastern Europe there is a time when some priests broke from it and we had several public schools springing up in the 1750s. Some of them were Slavic and others were Greek. This created a cultural struggle, but the point is, they broke with the Dark Ages tradition that people shouldn't be smart.

Today we have policy makers who dictate what doctors can and cannot do. I don't mean Congress, I mean Public Policy. This cancer grew inside the academic system itself. It attempts to censor not only professionals, but the open internet and anything people have access to. Now it's "you must be smart enough and part of our in crowd to access this information..." not "you shouldn't know things because it's evil" but the effect is the same. Public Policy and its lawyers cause websites to have to say "this is not medical advice, seek help from a professional."

When I became an American Citizen it was during my adolescence, and I took the entire affair completely to heart. All that stuff the public schools are criticized for, like making people liberal bunny huggers? I drank it in like ambrosia because I honestly believed that. They didn't "make me" be liberal and fair toward all people regardless of race, etc, etc... they simply allowed me to be who I am. On the one hand I agree with the Paleos when they say people should be strong and stand up under pressure. On the other, I believe that the pressure we should stand up against is cruelty in whatever form.


And getting back to my interest in the book, I found that many of these old places still exist. I've been to a few of them already because I was once wealthy. This time I can't afford to make a mistake and leave after a few days, changing my plans is an expense I can hardly afford anymore. But knowing how the place started out and what they advertise today will help me decide if their vision is still good, if they are just out to make a buck today, or if they have good results because they have good principles that are not compromised.
 

Not dead yet!

Well-Known Member
Here's an amusing portion on exercise in the "weak" patient:

Exercise Cure.—One of the forms of treatment regularly carried out in Germany, according to the instructions of Professor Oertel, is the so-called earth-cure, and English people are excusable for thus translating the phrase; but in reality it implies a mode of treatment by taking ascending walks. It may be objected that walking about for the sake of one's health is nothing new, which is true, or a part of the truth; but German physicians are clever in turning an old thing to new account, and patients, it must be admitted, take kindly to old things under fresh aspects. Tell an invalid to walk about, and he will not greatly value the advice; but prescribe the exercise cure or the method of Oertel, and he will do it. In a number of places the roads have been measured for this purpose, and the altitudes carefully marked, while coloured sign-boards put up indicate the height and distance that the physician orders in each case. It is certain that by a proper classification and regulation of exercise the weak will be prevented from doing more than is good for them, and indeed we all know that overexercise does as much harm as none at all. Ascending walks to suitable elevations are certainly useful in heart disease, obesity and many other complaints. Arco, Meran and other German watering-places are making a speciality of this very rational cure.



Ha, tell that to the Crossfit-ers. :) I did try to find stuff on Dr. Oretel, but he is so far absent from the Internet. It hink we should be very careful when we think things like "that's old, it has probably been debunked." Science is not modern. It is a house of cards that relies on very old ideas that have not yet been disproven. If we throw away everything that is "old" or has "old methods" then we are reinventing the wheel.
 

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