Principles of medicine : comprising general pathology & therapeutics, and a brief general view of etiology, nosology, semeiology, diagnosis and prognosis / by Charles J.B. Williams.

Date:
1843
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Principles of medicine : comprising general pathology & therapeutics, and a brief general view of etiology, nosology, semeiology, diagnosis and prognosis / by Charles J.B. Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    regard to the purpose of the different proximate elements of food. He considers that the albuminous principle alone nourishes the body; all other proximate elements go to supply the excretions; their carbon and hydrogen being united with the oxygen absorbed in respiration and thrown off in the form of carbonic acid and water; and the nitrogen with the remainder of hydrogen and carbon being separated in the constituents of bile and urine. The union of the combustible constituents of the food with the oxygen inhaled, he considers to be the great source of animal heat, which is raised by oily or saccharine matters in the food, together with the increased supply of oxygen afforded by cold air or exercise. Thus the Laplander eats train oil for fuel; whilst the Italian, under a sunny sky, delights in maccaroni, which nourishes without heating him. If the in- habitant of a warm climate indulges in rich, greasy food, he loads his blood with hydrocarbon, which the scanty oxygen of the rarer air which he breathes is insufficient to remove; the liver is overtasked to eliminate the superfluous matter, and is therefore liable to derangement. These and other views of this distinguished chemist are highly interesting, but as yet they seem too speculative to become the basis of pathological reasoning. 60. The views of Dr. Prout* on the due proportion of ali- mentary matters, although also in some measure hypothetical, are more in accordance with common experience. He considers milk to be the great prototype of all food: as its nutritious part consists of albumen, oil, and sugar, so all our wholesome meals, or artificial combinations of food, comprise these three ingredients; albumen being isomeric with fibrin and gluten, (that is, identical in ultimate composition,) and starch with sugar. 61. Every day’s experience may teach us that disorder is apt to occur if we do not duly proportion the articles of food : thus if we take too much butter or fat, we become sick and bilious; if we subsist too much on farinaceous food, we become costive, for want of bile; if we eat meat too freely, we become bloated and heated, the urine becomes high coloured, and if we persist, we may become the subjects of plethora, inflammation, gout, or “ On Stomach and Urinary Diseases.” 1840. P. xvi.