A treatise on the stomach and its trials / by J.C. Eno.

  • Eno, J. C.
Date:
[1870?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the stomach and its trials / by J.C. Eno. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    42/82 (page 40)
    quality, and rendered unfit for adequate nutrition, the lungs speedily suffer, and that often to a fatal extent; so certain is this fact,’ continues the doctor, ‘ that in the lower animals tubercles can be produced in the lungs to almost any extent, by withholding a sufficiency of nourishing food.’ The same circumstances operate, to a lamentable extent, among the poorly-fed population of our manufacturing towns; whereas it is proverbial that butchers, a class of men who eat animal food twice a-day, and live much in the open air, are almost exempt from pulmonary consumption. Some writers on this disease have indeed said, con¬ sumption cannot be the result of a deficient supply of nourishment, or it would not so frequently occur in wealthy families; but such writers must be unaware of the fact, that starvation may result as well from inability to digest food, as from a defective supply. Among the higher classes, the blood is impoverished and the lungs are injured, not from want of food, but from ivant of the power of ade¬ quately digesting it; and hence we find, in most treatises on consump¬ tion, a section devoted especially to dyspeptic phthisis, or consumption from bad digestion. The late hours, improper and heavy meals, and deficient exercise, which are so generally complained of, but still regu¬ larly adhered to in society, are the chief sources of the evil to which I am now alluding. And when we take a survey of the nature and struc¬ ture of the human system, and of the blood which imparts to it its life- giving principle, we cease to wonder that impoverishment in this crimson tide should produce all these sad and deplorable evils to life and health which have been enumerated. It would be naturally impossible that such disastrous results should not be produced by such a state of the blood, inasmuch as impoverishment is neither more nor less than general debility. Another main cause of consumption is inattention to the skin, for which see page 53. Persons who are very particular about the ventilation of their rooms during the day time, often take no heed of it during the hours of sleep. They forget that eight or nine hours spent in small, ill-ventilated, and confined rooms, or in beds surrounded by curtains, must produce a serious or prejudicial effect on health, in many instances when the system is below par; scrofula and consumption is excited in this way, or at least it is preparing the ground. Always keep the fire-place open. See Ventilation, p. 55. SYMPTOMS OF CONSUMPTION. There are no universal or infallible characteristics of physiognomy of feature, marking out the destined victims of consumption. The mode of attack and progress vary in different cases. In some instances, it shows