OTHER CASES OF PESTILENCE—FAMINE—UNWHOLESOME FOOD AND DRINK.
The operation of vitiated air in the production of disease is often very
much assisted by the presence of other prejudicial influences.
It has been frequently remarked that one stroke of misfortune seldom
comes alone, and that observation holds with striking force in reference
to the causes of disease. One cause of disease produces another, which
in its turn generates another, and so on, till the tendencies to, and
the excitants of, pestilence, are so strong and so numerous, that whole
communities are affected, one after another.
It not unfrequently happens that the predisposing source of some of the
most severe visitations of the most virulent distempers, is the want of
food, which generally depends on the exorbitant prices of provisions,
raised either by the arbitrary regulations of rulers, or by comparative
scarcity.
The total or almost total want of food is calculated to bring about,
very shortly, a mortal result, from exhaustion or from sinking of the
powers of the system.
When food is not withheld altogether, but is only given in sparing
quantity, in an amount insufficient for the maintenance of the body in
vigour, a condition of the system is induced, in which the functions are
imperfectly performed, in which the blood and the various humours become
universally prone to morbid change, and in which there arises a great
tendency to disease of a low or asthenic character.
If, under such privation, vitiated air be present, whether arising from
men in health, but uncleanly or crowded in close apartments; from the
clothes, or excretions of the sick; or from terrestrial effluvia; it
will give form to disease, will act as a spark amid fuel, and will
shortly convert any predisposition to sickness that may exist into
reality itself.
In those suffering under scarcity of food, there is generally
experienced great depression of mind, which is hurtful in itself and
injurious by preventing sufficient exertions for the maintenance of
cleanliness: there is an inability to procure requisites for the
purpose, and when, perchance, they are obtained, there is too often too
much apathy or supineness to admit of their being used.
That miserable individual who is famishing, who is so unfortunate as to
hear his helpless children call for bread, which he, alas, cannot give,
who himself is exhausted and sinking with want, is seldom found to be
very solicitous about cleanliness.
A mother so situated will, in her misery, amid her actual sufferings,
and with the dark yet immediate prospect of further hardships, forget
the necessity or disregard its call; of removing impurities from her
hut, of retaining the persons and clothes of her family clean—and of
washing the furniture, the walls and floor of her pestilence-haunted
cabin.
In such a situation, cleanliness is neglected and impurities of all
kinds accumulate which emit effluvia, to add to the number of the causes
of gradual death impending over a family thus situated.
Let a case be supposed in which disease makes its appearance in
obedience to the summons of so many forces, and let the malady be of a
low or putrid character, and the patient dangerously ill. This family is
unable from depression of mind, and from that exhaustion attendant upon
actual want, to give him the requisite attention and assistance, and
neither the means of cure are administered, nor is a suitable diet
afforded. Effluvia arise, and no means being adopted to remove them,
they become highly concentrated, and prove the immediate exciting cause
of disease among all around who may be prepared by the operation of
other favouring influences for that consummation. The occurrence of
typhus fever among the labouring classes of this country, which is
observed every winter, but more especially on those occasions when
provisions, the necessaries of life, are high in price, when employment
is with difficulty obtained, and when the wages are low, sufficiently
attests the fact that scanty food is a powerful cause of disease, and
one of a widely extended range of action. It is invariably in those
years when there is least correspondence between the severity or
inclemency of the season, the price of provisions and the means of the
labourer that typhus fever commits most havoc. I have had occasion to
note the prevalence of an unusual amount of disease, and amongst other
forms, that of fever, in winters following partial failures of the
crops, and the most satisfactory evidence has been afforded that a large
proportion of the sickness was the consequence of high prices, and
consequent scanty and insufficient food.
Such great prevalence of disease can be readily accounted for, when it
is known that the ordinary amount of the wage of the day labourer does
not exceed nine or ten shillings per week. I have heard labourers of the
most sober and frugal habits affirm, that if their whole wage were spent
in the purchase of oat meal for porridge, and of bread, that there would
not be more of those provisions than would barely satisfy their children
and themselves.
A scanty and unwholesome diet induces a bad and acrimonious state of the
fluids, and leads to many diseases, and among others, to scurvy, which
was long a frightful pestilence among our sailors.
Where there exists that tendency to scrophula, which is common in this
climate, the relaxing influence of a poor and scanty diet is
particularly hurtful, and proves the exciting cause of that hideous
disease in all its frightful forms. Scrophula is much connected with a
sluggish state of certain organs called glands. These organs are found
in all parts of the body, and in health vary in size from that of a
pin’s head to that of a bean, but in scrophulous subjects they are found
much larger, the smaller being often more than the size of a pea, and
the larger being equal to a hen’s egg.
Glands are congeries of vessels in which fluids of various kinds are
elaborated, and it is partly from these fluids or those from which they
are formed, stagnating in their vessels, owing to want of vital action,
that the swelling arises, which is always found in scrofulous subjects.
That sluggish disposition of these parts is generally connected with a
languid and lax state of the general system, which is liable to be
greatly increased by whatever diminishes the vigour of the body. Few
circumstances are better calculated to produce that effect than
insufficient food, and hence it is that those diseases whose foundation
is a scrophulous taint, are so much promoted in times of scarcity, and
among individuals accustomed to a liberal diet when accidentally placed
on scanty fare.
Instances are known where persons have become affected with weak eyes,
with tenderness, watering and disposition to ulceration in these organs,
immediately upon being put on spare and poor diet, and where a liberal
supply of nutritious food has proved an almost immediate cure. That
affection of the eyes was a form of scrophula, and fortunate it was for
them that the form in which that disease manifested itself was not more
dangerous. They had much reason to be thankful that the injury was
capable of cure, and was not irremediable, as it has been in many
instances, where the first intimation of the bad consequences of a
scanty and insufficient diet has been decided and incurable consumption
of the lungs.
When the glands which assume the scrofulous action are those of the
lungs, and when they become the seat of the formation of matter,
pulmonary consumption is said to be produced, a disease which annually
carries off a great proportion of the adult population of this country.
Consumption of the lungs, or pulmonary consumption, is a common
affection among those who subsist on scanty and insufficient food, and
is frequently observed with dogs and other animals whose sustenance is
small and precarious. Scrophula manifests itself in other forms, not
less severe and extremely loathsome—in running sores on the neck and
other parts, in swellings of the joints, and in various wasting diseases
of the bones and their coverings.
In the various forms which this disease assumes, the blood and the
different humours of the body become unhealthy and often acrimonious.
The milk of nurses who are tainted with that habit is unwholesome, and
when they are made to subsist on scanty and insufficient diet, it
becomes poor, less nutritious, and positively injurious—and instead of
being bland and white, it often appears watery and yellowish, and is
irritating and acrimonious.
Food of an unwholesome or vitiated quality is also injurious, and has on
many occasions proved to be the cause of much disease. Plants as well as
animals are subject to disease, and food when obtained from such sources
is highly unwholesome and detrimental to health.
The flesh of animals which have laboured under disease, has, on many
occasions, done much harm, and is liable to be much more injurious than
flesh which is merely putrid from being too long kept. Flesh merely
putrid much more seldom proves hurtful, as, long before it can be very
pernicious, it becomes so offensive that it cannot be consumed.
Moreover, food which has acquired a slight taint, is more easily
digested, its fibres become less tense, less hard, and more easily
divided and dissolved in the stomach.
But the most important injuries of the kind have arisen from the use of
diseased grain. On the Continent the rye sometimes becomes diseased, and
the grain throws out a fungus somewhat like the spur of a cock. Rye thus
deteriorated, when used for food, has produced disease of a very serious
character. Persons who partake of it suffer great pain of stomach, fiery
heat in the extremities, and very violent convulsions. This spurred rye
produces mortification of the extremities, of a very remarkable nature.
The late celebrated surgeon, Mr Pott, thus describes these affections.
“At the extremity of one or more of the small toes, in more or less
time, it passes on to the foot or ankle, and sometimes to a part of the
leg, and in spite of all the aid of physic and surgery, most commonly
destroys the patient. It is very unlike to the mortification from
inflammation, or to that from external cold. In its severer attacks,
however, the constitution seems to be generally contaminated, the mind
and body become equally debilitated, there is great irritability and a
tendency to convulsive action.”
Rye thus diseased produces another distemper, which partakes of the
nature of typhus fever and that of plague: it is called by the French
“Mal des ardens,” and is generally considered one of the worst forms of
the pest. That disease is marked by the most virulent character, and
has, on many occasions, committed the most fearful ravages. It commences
with a sensation of burning, prostration of strength, delirium, and
vehement headach; a bad form of erysipelas attacks the skin, ending in
suppuration, matter forms in the armpits and groins, and these symptoms
almost invariably terminate in death. There is good reason to believe
that the fungus or cock-spur is the product of disease in the plant. It
is about the size of a cock-spur, is coffee-coloured, and may be readily
detected when the farmer is disposed to use his eyes.
In this country, wheat which has been blighted or infected with the
parasitic plant called mildew; has sometimes produced very bad effects,
not unlike the severe burning at stomach, and the mortification which
supervene on the use of spurred rye on the Continent. Not long ago,
several families living in England were nearly destroyed by their using
some diseased grain, which a farmer, knowing it to be bad, had sold at a
reduced price. Other plants are sometimes known to be attacked with
disease, and in that state are ascertained to inflict much mischief. The
potato is more particularly injurious when its quality is bad.
Plants, like animals, may be affected with disease, and may be most
unwholesome, without exhibiting any very marked signs of their morbid
condition.
DRINK.
Drink is as essential as food itself, to the maintenance of the health
of man. Thirst is no less urgent than hunger itself, and it often
happens that it must be satisfied when the calls of the appetite for
food are unheard. Drink of a wholesome quality is highly salubrious, and
conduces much to maintain the blood, and the various humours in a
healthy condition. Water is the only beverage with which Providence has
directly supplied his creatures, and is, under ordinary circumstances,
the liquid of all others the best adapted to their use.
Pure water is refreshing, cooling, and dilutes the blood, which, without
some diluent, would become too thick to move readily along its
containing vessels, to perform aright its manifold duties, and to
accomplish its numerous purposes in the animal economy. Water taken into
the stomach goes to supply that very considerable part of the mass of
blood which is constantly earned off in the shape of sensible and
insensible perspiration, and of other secretions, and to correct the
tendency in that vital fluid, to become irritating and acrimonious from
the formation and accumulation of various salts.
In order that the deleterious action of some liquids may be the more
readily understood, we will inquire how drink, which is taken into the
stomach, is there disposed of.
One of the chief objects which is obtained from the use of drink, is the
dilution and mollifying of the blood; and in order that this important
purpose may be effected, it is necessary that they be brought in contact
and mixed with each other.
Water, or any watery beverage, being received into the stomach, many
thousand vessels open their mouths upon the walls of that organ, and
imbibe the contained liquid, in virtue of a vital action which they
possess. The liquid is soon sucked up, and is carried by the veins and
the absorbent vessels into the general circulation, there to be mixed
and incorporated with the mass of blood. It has been popularly thought,
that there exists a direct communication between the stomach and the
kidneys, by which the contents of the former are conveyed to the latter
organs; and that supposition probably arose from the fact, that the
kidneys have an immediate increase of duty after copious drinking; and
that fluids having a peculiar and strong odour have been detected,
discharged, very soon after their reception into the stomach.
However, there is no direct communication between these organs, and all
liquids which are taken into the stomach must be passed through the
general circulation before they can reach the kidneys; and thus it is
worthy to be observed, that liquids which are possessed of deleterious
properties, have an ample field for their operation.
It is rare that any bad effects follow the use of moderately cold water
in a state of purity, and any instances in which injury has followed,
may, with perfect propriety, be regarded as depending on accidental
circumstances.
It sometimes happens, that water free of impurities, cannot be obtained,
and that, what is highly impure is taken into the stomach. Many nations
are occasionally subject to the privation of pure water, and are
compelled to have recourse to the tainted waters of sluggish rivers, of
almost stagnant rivulets, and putrefying lakes; and the consequence is,
that their health suffers, and that the invasion of disease is much
promoted.
The inhabitants of Switzerland, and of several other countries, are
supplied on some occasions, with no other water than that which is
obtained from snow, and the prevalence of goitre among the Swiss, has
been attributed by some physicians to that circumstance.
But man is not satisfied with this excellent beverage—water—which is
ever at hand, and to be obtained without a price.
While yet little advanced in the knowledge of the arts, man discovered
that the various juices with which the various fruits of the earth
abound, afforded, during fermentation, a liquor which possessed
properties such as strongly recommended it to his use. These juices,
after fermentation, prove exhilarating and intoxicating, and all the
nations of the world have their respective wines or intoxicating
beverages. This liquor, which is the product of fermentation, gives to
these juices their peculiar character. It is called spirits of wine, is
colourless, and is lighter than water.
The liquors in which that active agent resides, when taken in small
quantities, quicken the circulation of the blood, render more acute the
perceptions, and augment the heat of the body. When these liquors are
taken more copiously, the circulation becomes violently affected, the
face flushes, and the blood is sent to the head, with too great
velocity, and in too great abundance.
At first the mind is stimulated, but there gradually ensue sleep,
stupor, and privation of sense and motion, which may continue even unto
death. Several cases, in which death took place in this way from
drinking to excess, are detailed in Mr Watson’s excellent work on
homicide. But when the quantity which is taken is insufficient to
produce the last-mentioned effects, but is often repeated, it frequently
happens that disease, more or less acute, attacks some of the more
important organs of the body, as the stomach, liver, kidneys, brain,
heart, and the general nervous system.
The diseases which follow the long continued excessive use of liquors,
containing spirits of wine, vary in their nature, but, on the whole,
they prove highly dangerous, interfere with the performance of some of
the most important functions, and often lead directly to a mortal
result.
Where death is not the immediate consequence of the diseased condition
of these organs, symptoms arise which make the course of life run
bitterly along, the general system breaks up, the miserable victim
presents in vivid colours, the signs of premature decay, the accession
of acute and mortal sickness is greatly favoured, and the intellectual
faculties are impaired.
Many melancholy instances are known of soldiers at the sacking of
conquered towns, who, indulging in wine and other spirituous liquors to
great excess, have died in vast numbers, both immediately, and more
slowly, through the operation of disease, which had been induced by too
deep potations, by too long protracted carousing, and by that exposure
to those influences favourable to the developement of disease, to which
excess never fails to lead.
“Some thousands of soldiers covered the great square and the adjoining
streets (of Moscow), but they lay extended and stiff in front of the
magazines of brandy which they had broken open, and from which they had
drawn death, expecting to derive from them life.”[8]
Footnote 8:
Segur’s Expedition to Russia.
The habit of indulging to excess in spirituous liquors, when it does not
directly induce pestilence, assuredly lays those who are its victims,
particularly open to its invasion, and is, therefore, entitled to be
regarded as a very important agent in the great tragedy of life which is
enacting.