CONSUMPTION——(_Continued_).
The country boor says he must have meat to make muscle; and all
the while his vegetarian team is twitching him and his plow
along the furrow. Where does he suppose they get their muscles?--
THOREAU.
Stupidly ignorant, or unmindful, of the fact that there are, in this
country and Europe, hundreds of thousands of people of all ages, sexes and
social positions, who live year in and year out mainly, and a large
proportion strictly, on the vegetarian diet, and live in health, not only,
but found perfect health by abandoning the common mixed diet and coming
nearer to first principles——notwithstanding all this, still the farce goes
on among the scientists of “proving” by chemical analyses, pretty theories
and specious arguments, that man “can not subsist in health on a
vegetarian diet.”[17]
[Footnote 17: Jules Virey estimates that four-tenths of the human race
subsist exclusively on a vegetable diet, and that seven-tenths are
practically (though not on principle) vegetarians. Virchow estimates the
total number at eighty-five per cent.——OSWALD.]
“The matter is this: in a cold climate we can not thrive without a modicum
of fat, but that fat need not come from slaughtered animals. In a colder
country than England, the East-Russian peasant, remarkable for his robust
health and longevity, subsists on cabbage-soup, rye-bread, and vegetable
oils. In a colder country than England, the Gothenburg shepherds live
chiefly on milk, barley bread, and esculent roots. The strongest men of
the three manliest races of the present world are non-carnivorous: the
Turanian mountaineers of Daghestan and Lesghia, the Mandingo tribes of
Senegambia, and the Schleswig-Holstein _Bauern_, who furnish the heaviest
cuirassiers for the Prussian army and the ablest seamen for the Hamburg
navy. Nor is it true that flesh is an indispensable, or even the best,
brain-food. Pythagoras, Plato, Seneca, Paracelsus, Spinoza, Peter Bayle,
and Shelley were vegetarians; so were Franklin and Lord Byron in their
best years. Newton, while engaged in writing his ‘Principia’ and
‘Quadrature of Curves,’ abstained entirely from animal food, which he had
found by experience to be unpropitious to severe mental application. The
ablest modern physiologists incline to the same opinion. ‘I use animal
food because I have not the opportunity to choose my diet,’ says Professor
Welch, of Yale; ‘but, whenever I have abstained from it, I have found my
health mentally, morally, and physically better.’”——(“Physical
Education.”)
With regard to the muscular vigor of vegetarians: if they have not become
noted as “winners of rowing, walking, or boxing matches,” it is chiefly
because they are rarely sporting men; besides, they are as yet in this
country——although their numbers are quite rapidly increasing——in a very
small minority; but, of late, since this objection has been so frequently
raised, vegetarians have entered the lists, notably in England, in
bicycle races, and have distanced their meat-eating rivals in long races,
showing greater staying powers.
Says the London _Lancet_: “In the summer of 1872, it became necessary to
shift the rails on upwards of 500 miles of permanent way on the Great
Western line, from the broad to the narrow gauge, and there was only a
fortnight to do it in. The work to be got through was enormous. About
3,000 men were employed, and they worked double time, sometimes from four
in the morning till nine at night. Not a soul was sick, sorry, or drunk,
and the work was accomplished on time. What was the extraordinary support
of this wonderful spurt of muscular strength and energy? Weak oatmeal
gruel. There was no beer, spirits, or alcoholic drink in any form. Here,”
continues the _Lancet_, “is a very old and well-known agent, cheap enough,
and easily procured, capable of imparting ‘staying power’ better,
probably, than anything else, which is not employed to anything like the
extent it might be with advantage.”
The principal part of the ration allowed in the above case was one and
one-half pounds of oatmeal. In view of the immense labor performed by
these men on that quantity of this cereal, can it be wondered at that the
sedentary dyspeptic who essays to “diet” on three full meals of such food
comes to grief? For him a single moderate meal of grain food, with fruit,
would be a generous ration.
To very many the term “vegetarian” seems almost to imply one who is
restricted to a diet of turnips and water. But Epicurus, the god of
gluttons, was himself a vegetarian, for while he regarded pleasure as the
_summum bonum_, and placed the pleasures of the table first, still, he
knew that a simple fare was most conducive to health and comfort in this
life. As to variety: “with five kinds of cereals, three legumina, eight
species of esculent roots, ten or twelve nutritive herbs, thirty to forty
varieties of tree fruits, besides berries and nuts, a vegetarian might
emulate the Duc de Polignac, who refused to eat the same dish more than
once per season.”
In view of the constant violations of natural law as to quality, quantity
and frequency of meals, I would say that it is from the nature of the case
impossible for people living in the prevailing manner to avoid digestive
disorders;[18] in practice I find _none_ altogether exempt from them,
except the very small class of abstemious vegetarians referred to——an
individual or a family, or two, in each community——all others are more or
less dyspeptic, and _dyspepsia_ is _incipient consumption_. Thousands of
dyspeptics are oblivious as to the true nature of their disorder, simply
because the most marked symptoms in their cases, _now_, are affections of
the throat and lungs. The popular ignorance in this direction amply
accounts for the appalling fact that respiratory diseases destroy the
lives of about one-third, and consumption alone one-fifth of all who die
in this country. When dyspepsia has blossomed into consumption, unless the
primary disease——that of the stomach and intestines——is removed——an
impossibility except by a radical change from the evil dietetic habits
that have caused it——nature is powerless to heal the lungs, because (1)
the inflammation is being perpetually propagated, and (2) the entire
nutritive system is becoming more and more hopelessly diseased.
[Footnote 18: “I think I shall not be far wrong if I say that there are
few subjects more important to the well-being of man than the selection
and preparation of his food. Our forefathers in their wisdom have
provided, by ample and generously endowed organizations, for the
dissemination of moral precepts in relation to human conduct, and for the
constant supply of sustenance to meet the cravings of religious emotions
common to all sorts and conditions of men. In these provisions no student
of human nature can fail to recognize the spirit of wisdom and a lofty
purpose. But it is not a sign of ancestral wisdom that so little thought
has been bestowed on the teaching of what we should eat and drink; that
the relations, not only between food and a healthy population, but between
food and virtue, between the process of digestion and the state of mind
which results from it, have occupied a subordinate place in the practical
arrangements of life. No doubt there has long been some practical
acknowledgment, on the part of a few educated persons, of the simple fact
that a man’s temper, and consequently many of his actions, depends on such
an alternative as whether he habitually digests his food well or ill;
whether the meals which he eats are properly converted into healthy
material, suitable for the ceaseless work of building up both muscle and
brain; or whether unhealthy products constantly pollute the course of
nutritive supply. But the truth of that fact has never been generally
admitted to an extent at all comparable with its exceeding importance. It
produces no practical result on the habits of men in the least degree
commensurate with the pregnant import it contains. For it is certain that
an adequate recognition of the value of proper food to the individual in
maintaining a high standard of health, in prolonging healthy life (the
prolongation of unhealthy life being small gain either to the individual
or to the community), and thus largely promoting cheerful temper,
prevalent good-nature, and improved moral tone, would require almost a
revolution in the habits of a large part of the community.
“The general outlines of a man’s mental character and physical tendencies
are doubtless largely determined by the impress of race and family. That
is, the scheme of the building, its characteristics and dimensions, are
inherited; but to a very large extent the materials and filling in of the
framework depend upon his food and training. By the latter term may be
understood all that relates to mental and moral and even to physical
education, in part already assumed to be fairly provided for, and
therefore not further to be considered here. No matter, then, how
consummate the scheme of the architect, nor how vast the design, more or
less of failure to rear the edifice results when the materials are ill
chosen or wholly unworthy to be used. Many other sources of failure there
may be which it is no part of my business to note; but the influence of
food is not only itself cardinal in rank, but, by priority of action,
gives rise to other and secondary agencies.
“The slightest sketch of the commonest types of human life will suffice to
illustrate this truth.
“To commence, I fear it must be admitted that the majority of infants are
reared on imperfect milk by weak or ill-fed mothers. And thus it follows
that the signs of disease, of feeble vitality, or of fretful disposition,
may be observed at a very early age, and are apparent in symptoms of
indigestion or in the cravings of want manifested by the ‘peevish’ and
sleepless infant. In circumstances where there is no want of abundant
nutriment, over-feeding or complicated forms of food, suitable only for
older persons, produce for this infant troubles which are no less grave
than those of the former. In the next stage of life, among the poor the
child takes his place at the parents’ table, where lack of means, as well
as of knowledge, deprives him of food more suitable than the rough fare of
the adult.... On the whole, perhaps he is not much worse off than the
child of the well-to-do, who becomes a pet, and is already familiarized
with complex and too solid forms of food and stimulating drinks which
custom and self-indulgence have placed on the daily table. And soon
afterward commence in consequence——and entirely in consequence, a fact it
is impossible too much to emphasize——the ‘sick-headaches’ and ‘bilious
attacks,’ which pursue their victim through half a lifetime, to be
exchanged for gout or worse at or before the grand climacteric. And so
common are these evils that they are regarded by people in general as a
necessary appanage of ‘poor humanity.’ No notion can be more erroneous,
since it is absolutely true that the complaints referred to are
self-engendered, form no necessary part of our physical nature, and for
their existence are dependent almost entirely on our habits in relation to
food and drink. I except, of course, those cases in which hereditary
tendencies are so strong as to produce these evils, despite some care on
the part of the unfortunate victim of an ancestor’s self-indulgence.
Equally, however, on the part of that little-to-be-revered progenitor was
ill-chosen food, or more probably excess in quantity, the cause of
disease, and not the physical nature of man.
“The next stage of boyhood transfers the child just spoken of to a public
school, where too often inappropriate diet, at the most critical period of
growth, has to be supplemented from other sources. It is almost
unnecessary to say that chief among these are the pastry-cook and the
vender of portable provisions, for much of which latter that skin-stuffed
compound of unknown origin, an uncertified sausage, may be accepted as the
type.
“After this period arise the temptations to drink, among the youth of all
classes, whether at beer-house, tavern, or club. For it is often taught in
the bosom of the family, by the father’s example and by the mother’s
precept, that wine, beer, and spirits are useful, nay, necessary to
health, and that they augment the strength. And the lessons thus
inculcated and too well learned were but steps which led to wider
experience in the pursuit of health and strength by larger use of the same
means. Under such circumstances it often happens, as the youth grows up,
that a flagging appetite or a failing digestion habitually demands a dram
before or between meals, and that these are regarded rather as occasions
to indulge in variety of liquor than as repasts for nourishing the body.
It is not surprising, with such training, that the true object of both
eating and drinking is entirely lost sight of. The gratification of
acquired tastes usurps the function of that zest which healthy appetite
produces; and the intention that food should be adapted to the physical
needs of the body and the healthy action of the mind is forgotten
altogether. So it often comes to pass that at middle age, when man finds
himself in the full current of life’s occupations, struggling for
pre-eminence with his fellows, indigestion has become persistent in some
of its numerous forms, shortens his ‘staying power,’ or spoils his
judgment or temper. And, besides all this, few causes are more potent than
an incompetent stomach to engender habits of selfishness and egotism. A
constant care to provide little personal wants of various kinds, thus
rendered necessary, cultivates these sentiments, and they influence the
man’s whole character in consequence.”
“But it is necessary to say at this point, and I desire to say it
emphatically, that the subject of food need not, even with the views just
enunciated, be treated in an ascetic spirit. It is to be considered in
relation to a principle, in which we may certainly believe, that aliments
most adapted to develop the individual, sound in body and mind, shall not
only be most acceptable but that they may be selected and prepared so as
to afford scope for the exercise of a refined taste, and produce a fair
degree of that pleasure naturally associated with the function of the
palate, and derived from a study of the table. For it is certain that
nine-tenths of the gormandism which is practiced——for the most part a
matter of faith without knowledge——is no more a source of gratification to
the eater’s gustatory sense than it is of digestible sustenance to his
body.”——“FOOD AND FEEDING,” by Sir Henry Thompson.]
The stomach, more especially after long years of abusive treatment, is
one of the least sensitive organs. “If it had nerves as sensitive as our
finger-tips, our attention would be so much taken up with the ordinary
digestion of food that we could not properly attend to our work or
studies.” At first, in infancy, it is more sensitive, and any excess of
food is thrown off, but ere many months the disorder grows worse and
deeper-seated, and in the course of years stomachs become so diseased as
to give no sign, except when unusually outraged. It may have sores without
knowing it. Dr. Beaumont saw sores in St. Martin’s stomach after the
latter had drunk liquor, but they occasioned no pain. “Cold sores,”
chapped lips, parched or pimpled tongue or mouth, furred tongue, etc.,
etc., are but signs of serious disease of the stomach and intestines, and,
consequently, of the entire organism.
I have classed as one of the most natural and effective measures for the
preservation of health or the cure of disease, _rest_; for diseased
organs, rest[19] and light tasks; for the healthy person who desires to
keep well, I have said, “rest when tired.” Unfortunately many people, and
more especially consumptives, never know when they are tired, but work
habitually, until they are exhausted. With the latter, this is usually set
down to willfulness or lack of judgment. “She won’t listen to reason,”
says the anxious husband. “She is always overdoing,” says another.
Jockeys, describing horses thus affected, call them “pullers”: it is the
same disease——indigestion. Reason being dethroned by the poisoned
circulation in the brain, Nature, through muscular action, essays to
excrete the toxic elements. This is _stimulation_ (see “Coffee.”)
[Footnote 19: The various excretory organs, as the bowels, kidneys, liver,
as well as the digestive apparatus, are relieved by fasting, or
diminishing the food ration.]
It is the stimulus imparted by the thrice daily ingestion of so many
unnatural and indigestible articles that compose the mixed diet, which
prevents so many from resting when they are tired. With others, however,
the effect is quite the reverse: some are always complaining of a “tired
feeling.” There is a genuine lack of vital force occasioned by lack of
nourishment. When this feeling is experienced on rising, it is usually,
almost invariably, at least in part, the effect of close sleeping-rooms.
Many persons,——some who are fat, and called healthy, others, perhaps,
lean,——are called “lazy” who are positively weak, too weak to work without
great effort such as lookers-on know nothing about, although most people
may have had similar feelings occasionally——the “after-dinner laziness.”
This special form of disease has previously been spoken of. (See p. 34).
Nutrition is the grand factor in the prevention or cure of disease. It may
be said, truly enough, that the blood-_aerating_ capacity remains
throughout equal, often superior, to the blood-_making_ capacity; and
consumption may be appropriately described as _dyspeptic starvation_. (See
“Saline Starvation.”) In those instances where the capital stock (of
vitality) is exhausted the victims of this disease must die; but thousands
of cases pronounced after a long course of medication and stimulation,
hopeless, have been restored by a simple diet and an out-door life. Even
hygienic institutes have failed to apply this principle in its entirety
when brought face to face with cases that demanded “heroic treatment;”
influenced in some measure, possibly, by the popular distrust of their
methods, especially the deep prejudice against a restricted diet——now,
however, rapidly disappearing——they have hitherto erred continually on the
side of excess. Nevertheless, they restore to health, or greatly benefit,
ninety per cent. of the broken down invalids who come to them, usually, as
a last resort.
I desire here to note particularly the change now going on in the minds of
the most eminent and practical physicians in this and European countries,
concerning the use of beef-tea. It is found by chemical analysis to be
almost identical with “chamber-lye”——the favorite prescription of our
grandmothers——and although more agreeable to the taste than urine, even
when the latter is drowned in treacle, it is, in my opinion, always
injurious, especially in sickness, when, of course, the excretory system
is already taxed to the utmost. Most people, even in health, have more
than they can well do to excrete their own, once, without swallowing any
portion of the waste of animals!
Says Dr. Brunton:
“We find only too frequently that both doctors and patients think that the
strength is sure to be kept up if a sufficient quantity of beef-tea can
only be got down; but I think it a question whether beef-tea may not very
frequently (?) be actually injurious, and whether the products of muscular
waste which constitute the chief portion of beef-tea, beef-essence, or
even the beef itself, may not, under certain circumstances, be actually
poisonous.”
“In many cases of nervous depression we find a feeling of weakness and
prostration coming on during digestion, and becoming so very marked about
the second hour after a meal has been taken, and at the very time when
absorption is going on, that we can hardly do otherwise than ascribe it to
actual poisoning by digestive products absorbed into the circulation. From
the observation of a number of cases, I came to the conclusion that the
languor and faintness of which many patients complained, and which
occurred about eleven and four o’clock, was due to actual poisoning by the
products of digestion of breakfast and lunch; but at the time when I
arrived at this conclusion I had no experimental data to show that the
products of digestion were actually poisonous in themselves; and only
within the last few months have I seen the conclusions to which I had
arrived by clinical observation, confirmed by experiments made in the
laboratory. Such experiments have been made by Professor Albertoni, of
Genoa, and by Dr. Schmidt-Mühlheim, in Professor Ludwig’s laboratory at
Leipsic.”
“Professor Albertoni and Dr. Schmidt-Mühlheim independently made the
discovery that peptones prevented the coagulation of the blood in dogs,
and the latter, under Ludwig’s direction, has also investigated their
action upon the circulation. He finds that, when injected into a vein,
they greatly depress the circulation, so that the blood-pressure falls
very considerably; and when the quantity injected is large, they produce a
soporose condition, complete arrest of the secretion by the kidneys,[20]
convulsions, and death. From these experiments it is evident that the
normal products of digestion are poisons of no inconsiderable power, and
that if they reach the general circulation in large quantities they may
produce very alarming, if not dangerous symptoms.”
[Footnote 20: See “Bright’s Disease.”]
“Instead of trying to keep up the strength, as it is termed, by loading
the stomach with food, the exhausted brain-worker should rather lean
toward abstinence from food, and especially toward abstinence from
alcoholic liquors.[21] The feeling of muscular weakness and lassitude,
which I have already had occasion to mention as frequently coming on about
two hours after meals, is not uncommonly met with in persons belonging to
the upper classes who are well fed and have little exercise. It is perhaps
seen in its most marked form in young women or girls who have left school,
and who, having no definite occupation in life, are indisposed to any
exercise, either bodily or mental. I am led to look upon this condition as
one of poisoning, both on account of the time of its occurrence, during
the absorption of digestive products, and by reason of the peculiar
symptoms——viz., a curious weight in the legs and arms, the patient
describing them as feeling like lumps of lead. These symptoms so much
resemble the effect which would be produced by a poison like curare, that
one could hardly help attributing them to the action of a depressant or
paralyzer of motor nerves or centers. The recent researches of Ludwig and
Schmidt-Mühlheim render it exceedingly probable that peptones are the
poisonous agents in these cases; and an observation which I have made
seems to confirm this conclusion, for I found that the weakness and
languor were less after meals consisting of farinaceous food only. My
observations, however, are not sufficiently extensive to absolutely
convince me that they are entirely absent after meals of this sort, so
that possibly the poisoning by peptones, although one cause of the
languor, is not to be looked upon as the only cause.”[22]
[Footnote 21: See chapter on Coffee.]
[Footnote 22: “Indigestion as a Cause of Nervous Depression.” By T. Lauder
Brunton. M.D., F.R.S., in _Practitioner_.]
I am able to vouch for a number of cases of consumption, and marasmus, in
which, under tonic treatment and frequent meals, the patients were
steadily declining, but which yielded, finally, to the influence of the
one-meal-a-day system: comparative rest of the diseased alimentary organs,
and consequent improvement in the digestive and assimilative functions
proved the needed “stimulant.” The Boston _Journal of Chemistry_, of
February, 1882, gives the history of a well-authenticated case, of an old
man of 70 years, who had been declining with pulmonary consumption for
three years, and who was pronounced incurable, who was made convalescent
by a voluntary and absolute fast of 43 days——taking water freely, however,
during the time——and, following this with the “bread and fruit” diet, was
restored to health.
Let us contrast this method of _restoring_ the nutritive organs with that
of “curing” them by medication:
J. Milner Fothergill, M.D., truly says (in the _Practitioner_), that “it
is more important to study the tongue than to go over the chest with a
stethoscope, and that attention to the stomach and bowels is just as
essential as the treatment of night sweats. When the tongue is covered
with thick fur it is nearly or quite useless to give iron or cod-liver
oil; for the tongue is the indicator of the state of the intestinal canal,
and absorption through the thick layer of dead epithelial cells is
impossible.” And then Dr. Fothergill gives us his method of _rasping off
the coating_, so to say, with “a compound calomel and colocynthe pill
every second night, and a mixture of nitro-hydrochloric or phosphoric
acid, with infusion of cinchona three times a day until the tongue
clears.” I would suggest that _nitro-glycerine_ would act more speedily
and reduce the suffering to a minimum! The point, however, to dwell
upon,——and it is one worthy of the deepest consideration,——is that the
state of the alimentary canal, so aptly described by the authority quoted,
and which forbids the absorption of iron and oil, also prohibits the
absorption of wholesome substances. Not only this; the secretion of the
digestive fluids (even supposing for the moment that these fluids are
present in normal amount and quality in the circulation, which is, of
course, far from the truth in this as in most disorders) is in great
degree prevented by this same physical obstruction, the “thick layer of
dead epithelial cells;” and, moreover, the secretion of fecal matters by
the glands of the colon is, in like manner and degree, prevented. (See
chapter on “Constipation.”)
What have we, then, in summing up, as the effect of this conservative
effort of nature to “iron-sheathe and copper-fasten” this most abused
alimentary tract, if I may thus characterize the coat which has resulted
from the maltreatment of the digestive organs, and but for which the
individual would, we may reasonably suppose, have died long ago from some
plethoric disease? First: the digestive fluids, being scant and scantily
secreted, it results that (2) only a small quantity at best, of the most
wholesome food, can be by them digested, and (3) absorption from the small
intestines is equally difficult, even supposing that the appropriate
“small quantity” of food possible to be digested has not been exceeded,
which, in ordinary practice, is anything but a supposable case. Excess is
the invariable rule, and therefore (4) the undigested and fermenting food
substances, excepting a portion which is absorbed in this poisonous
condition, make their sluggish course along the intestines, collect in
great masses in the lower bowel, and, finally, (a) either by aid of
purgative medicines, or the ordinary stimulating drinks indulged in, (b)
the irritating effects of these abnormal accumulations themselves, or (c)
by means of injections, the lower bowel is more or less frequently
emptied. These extraordinary evacuations are often described by the
patient or friends as “exhausting.” That such excreta is not composed of
true fecal matters, we may reasonably conclude from the fact that (1)
digestion and assimilation are but poorly performed, and but a very small
proportion, therefore, of the quantity swallowed (often enough
consumptives continue large eaters, gauged by any standard, and,
relatively speaking, this is invariably the rule with them)——but a small
proportion, I repeat, is absorbed into the circulation, and, therefore,
undigested food must form the chief share of the so-called fecal matters,
and (2) owing to the heavy fur-coat, lining the colon, the secretion of
waste matters from the blood is, as just stated, well nigh prohibited.
Hence it results that under the ordinary treatment the consumptive patient
is hurried out of the world by a relative, and, often enough, by an
actual, exaggeration of the very practices which originated his disorder.
Referring once more to Dr. Fothergill’s, which is, to be sure, the regular
drug plan: having scoured off the fur, so to say, with drastic purgatives,
which have, possibly, cut a little too deep; or when, from whatever cause,
instead of the furred coat, “the tongue is raw, bare, and denuded of
epithelium, the patient should,” he says, “take a mixture of _bismuth_
with an _alkali_ and use a milk diet. Seltzer water and milk will often
agree when the milk alone is found to be too heavy and constipating.” Here
we have a case analogous to that of the robust gourmand whose dinner of a
dozen courses is carried on and out by the aid of his “dinner pill,” or
the free use of filthy mineral waters: A cup or two of cow’s milk (which,
at best, is only a natural aliment for the calf, and which is too often
drawn from a creature herself suffering from tuberculosis), is, to the
depraved consumptive, even more “heavy and constipating” than the grossest
diet indulged in ordinarily, to supposably healthy Christians, not to
speak of such occasions as church festivals or society “breakfasts.” One
secret of the difficulty which besets the hygienist in his efforts to
prevail upon a consumptive patient to persist in a course of “natural
medication,” after having once fairly entered upon it, lies in this: There
is naturally a letting down, at first, from the stimulated condition, and
this is often discouraging; the craving for the customary stimulants is
almost as unappeasable as that of the rum-dyspeptic; and what makes the
matter worse with the consumptive than with the drunkard, everybody who
approaches the former seeks to tempt the appetite: or, in any event, the
sight, smell, and hearing of the “good things” renders abstinence from
such most difficult; and then, again, after leaving off many objectionable
articles of food and drink, and having abstained from them for a few
months, we will say, the transient resumption, always imminent, of the use
of forbidden fruit operates with renewed force, and the patient finds
himself, as he thinks, “gaining a little,” and he is thus encouraged to
fall back, more or less gradually, into all his old practices. Coffee, for
example,——which originally proved constipating, after its first
(laxative) effects ceased,——having been abstained from for some months, is
now found to “agree” with and even “help” the patient, who, beginning with
a single small cup at breakfast, works up finally to two at each meal;
and, altogether, things go on swimmingly for a time. Again, after a period
of abstinence from flesh-food, pastry, spices, etc.——to guard against
which nature has put the fur-coat upon the intestines, or, perhaps, it
should be said that the wear and tear occasioned by all unwholesome
articles introduced into the stomach, have produced an effect somewhat
analogous to the thickened cuticle resulting from the constant chafing of
an ill-fitting shoe, for example,——as the intestinal tract begins to
acquire something of its normal condition, there is a point when the
resumption of a “generous” diet, in which the aforesaid substances figure
largely, will seem to give the patient a fresh impulse healthward: they
once more, perhaps, produce the laxative effects simulating that most
desirable state of the bowels called “regular.” And so on to the end of
the chapter, the patient, friends, and perhaps the medical adviser, are
misled as to the real state of affairs, until, finally, the end
approaches, and the patient who was “improving so nicely” grows worse,
and, after a period of intense suffering, which weans him from all desire
to live, and reconciles his friends to the change, dies. “He catched cold,
it settled on his lungs, and in his weak state”——etc., etc.
Speaking in round terms, the consumptive’s digestive ability is about on a
par, usually, indeed, inferior to his muscular powers; and it is as
irrational to expect him to digest and assimilate several meals a day, as
to expect him to saw several cords of wood in the same length of time.
Both are alike impossible. The fact that the food disappears, or that
there is a craving for it, even, or, again, that it “seems to agree with
the stomach,” does not change the case. A little food of the simplest sort
may be assimilated, a little muscular exercise may be taken, and both
prove curative. In common practice, however, the alimentary system is
taxed to its own exhaustion and the impairment of the entire organism,
while the voluntary muscular system deteriorates by reason of _non-use_ as
well as from the general lack of nutrition.
A very grave error, however, is sometimes made——of taking too much
exercise; that is, of beginning the change too abruptly. Whatever the
state of one’s general health, he can only do with advantage _about_ what
he has _habitually done_. If he has all along lived a very active life and
is in his usual health, he can take a good deal of exercise without harm,
even with advantage; if, on the other hand, his life is sedentary, but
little can be taken——beyond the current amount——without doing more harm
than good. In either case, however, there may be a gradual increase of
muscular exercise, and for many of the latter class this would prove life
conserving, (if persisted in as a habit of life), but spasmodic efforts at
building up a muscular system will always fail; nature does nothing in
that fashion. The rule should be to exercise a little short of fatigue,
and it should be increased little by little each day, “until the labor of
working accommodates itself to easy habits.” This rule would leave for
some consumptive patients, at first, only the passive exercise of having
their muscles pressed by their attendant’s hand, or a gentle walk for a
short distance, and so on.
“Combined with a hectic flush of the face, night-sweats, or general
emaciation, shortness of breath leaves no doubt that the person thus
affected is in the first stage of pulmonary consumption. If the patient
were my son, I should remove the windows of his bedroom, and make him pass
his days in the open air——as a cow-boy or berry-gatherer, if he could do
no better. In case the disease had reached its _deliquium_ period, the
stage of violent bowel-complaints, dropsical swellings, and utter
prostration,[23] it would be better to let the sufferer die in peace; but,
as long as he were able to digest a frugal meal and walk two miles on
level ground, I should begin the outdoor cure at any time of the year, and
stake my own life on the result. I should provide him with clothing enough
to defy the vicissitudes of the seasons, and keep him outdoors in all
kinds of weather——walking, riding, or sitting; he would be safe: the fresh
air would prevent the _progress_ of the disease. But _improve_ he could
not without exercise. Increased exercise is the price of increased vigor.
Running and walking steel the leg-sinews. In order to strengthen his
wrist-joints a man must handle heavy weights. Almost any bodily
exercise——but especially swinging, wood-chopping, carrying weights, and
walking up-hill——increases the action of the lungs, and thus gradually
their functional vigor. Gymnastics that expand the chest facilitate the
action of the respiratory organs, and have the collateral advantage of
strengthening the sinews, and invigorating the system in general, by
accelerating every function of the vital process. The exponents of the
movement-cure give a long list of athletic evolutions, warranted to widen
out the chest as infallibly as French-horn practice expands the cheeks.
But the trouble with such machine-exercises is that they are almost sure
to be discontinued as soon as they have relieved a momentary distress,
and, as Dr. Pitcher remarks in his ‘Memoirs of the Osage Indians,’ the
symptoms of consumption (caused by smoking and confinement in winter
quarters) disappear during their annual buffalo-hunt, but reappear upon
their return to the indolent life of the wigwam. The problem is to make
outdoor exercise pleasant enough to be permanently preferable to the _far
niente_ whose sweets seem especially tempting to consumptives. This
purpose accomplished, the steady progress of convalescence is generally
insured, for the differences of climate, latitude, and altitude, of age
and previous habits, almost disappear before the advantages of an habitual
outdoor life over the healthiest indoor occupations.”——(“Physical
Education.”)
[Footnote 23: The fasting consumptive referred to on page 62 had already
approached this condition.——AUTHOR.]
I would not be understood, by any means, as advising every consumptive
patient, or every one who supposes himself to be suffering from this
disease, to immediately and without advice stop eating; but this much I
do say: in all cases of progressive emaciation, that is to say, where the
organs of digestion and assimilation have become so impaired that the body
is not nourished, but is steadily declining, the attending physician
should _consider_ the question of temporary rest for the alimentary
organs, so far as the ingestion of food is concerned. The presence even of
a craving appetite should be treated as a morbid symptom, and should weigh
in favor of abstinence. It should also be borne in mind that the earlier
this remedy is applied the smaller will be the “dose” indicated, and the
more speedy and complete the relief. Had Mr. Connolly, for example——whose
cure by fasting I have already alluded to——at any time during his first
few months of “pressure at the lungs, with cough and expectoration,”
fasted for a week or ten days,[24] perhaps, under the care of a physician
sufficiently intelligent to judge of his needs in this direction, and had
he thereafter lived on the plain diet which he now finds so complete, he
would in all probability have escaped the illness which followed, and
would have enjoyed uninterrupted health to the present day. Again, if he
had changed his manner of living five years earlier——from three “mixed”
meals[25] of stimulating food, as flesh and the irritating condiments
invariably associated with animal food; pastry, white flour, and
stimulating drinks, as tea and coffee——to two meals composed of the
cereals, vegetables and fruits, prepared in the simplest and plainest
manner, there would have been no call for a fast. I have the means of
knowing of over five thousand families in this country alone who have made
this change for preventive and curative purposes, and with the happiest
results. I would say that any person who finds his appetite failing or
fitful——sometimes poor, sometimes craving——and who has reason to fear the
decline of his nutritive powers, will do well to make a radical change in
his habits of living; and the sooner the better. The most pernicious
custom of which I have any knowledge, yet one almost universal in the care
of the sick, is that of “tempting the appetite,” concocting fancy or
especially toothsome dishes, when nature is saying in the plainest manner
that feeding has already been overdone. Such preparations are a severe tax
upon even robust persons——they are fatal to consumptives. It is infinitely
worse than bribing an exhausted laborer, who can scarcely move a muscle,
to rouse himself to fresh tasks. He will do more and better work by reason
of present and absolute rest; and the same is true of the sick stomach:
there will be a relish for the coarsest article of diet——aye, it will be
delicious——and digestion will wait on appetite, when the nutritive organs
shall have been restored by sufficient rest. The experiments of Tanner at
New York, Griscomb at Chicago, and now of Terrence Connolly (the
consumptive faster) at Newton, N. J., have, I believe, demonstrated the
fact that, in health or in sickness, in all cases of abstinence from all
food, saving only water and pure air, of whatever disease the subject may
die, it will not be for want of food, _so long as there remains any
considerable amount of flesh[26] on his bones_. By the light of these
experiences we shall do well, too, to study more closely the functions of
the lymphatic system: human flesh, by absorption, constitutes a most
appropriate diet in certain conditions of disease (see article on
rheumatism). The absorption and excretion of diseased tissues is, under
some circumstances, the only work that nature can with safety undertake,
and in these cases no building up can be accomplished until a solid
foundation is reached and the _debris_ removed; and _not then unless,
while this good work is going on, the nutritive organs are given an
opportunity to virtually renew themselves_.
[Footnote 24: It is evident that such a fast, _then_, would have proved,
so far as the danger of starvation is concerned, a mere bagatelle, since
three years later, as we have seen,——years of decline and emaciation,——he
endured, and, with advantage, a fast of over six weeks.]
[Footnote 25: A return to his old diet now would probably make short work
of this subject, and should I hear of his early death, my first inquiry
would relate to this point.]
[Footnote 26: The amount “consumed” in the case of Mr. Connolly from day
to day, was very slight indeed, scarcely more than before he left off
eating; that is, it was observed that his emaciation was no more rapid
during the fast than immediately prior thereto; before the fast his food
was not being digested nor assimilated, and he was taking purgatives
continually for torpid bowels.]
Dr. Tanner, in his forty days’ fast, lost about fifty pounds in weight.
Mr. Griscomb lost a little more than that in his fast of forty-five days;
and although moving about, taking more exercise every day than many
sedentary people, and attending to a large correspondence, etc., was still
able to say to the audience assembled to see him break his fast: “Ladies
and gentlemen, you see now a man who has swallowed no food, except water,
for forty-five days, and yet I can assure you that I am neither faint nor
hungry; but I shall soon convince you that I have an excellent appetite,”
and, so saying, he proceeded to partake of a very moderate dinner, and in
moderate fashion. It is commonly supposed that these are uncommon men:
they are uncommon only in possessing a knowledge as to the power of the
living organism to withstand abstinence from food, and in having the
courage of their opinions. And yet, when discussing the advantages of the
two-meal system, uninformed people talk about “getting faint if they go so
long” without nourishment! They speak from the three-meal-fish-flesh-fowl
and pickle stand-point; accustomed to applying a hot poultice to a
gnawing, sick stomach every few hours, they do get faint if the time runs
over a single hour.
These various fasts, with the lessons to be drawn from them, must prove,
finally, of inestimable value to science in the treatment of disease,
where it may be desirable to rest all the viscera, or any portion thereof,
concerned in digestion,[27] or to “close the bowels” for certain surgical
operations, without resorting to injurious medication, and also——a very
important consideration——in cases of enforced abstinence, as in time of
famine or shipwreck, to prevent death from fright and discouragement,
which have heretofore killed scores where actual starvation has one.
[Footnote 27: An eminent Maine statesman has recently died, who might have
recovered and lived for years, but for the mistaken theory that food is a
daily need under all circumstances: To constantly feed an irritated
stomach is like kicking a man when he is down. And yet this is being done
with fatal effect constantly all over the world. In certain cases, and
especially with aged patients, this system is as surely fatal as
strychnine, if less speedy. There are many besides myself who believe that
President Garfield died from fatty degeneration, chronic dyspepsia, and
constant feeding during his illness, rather than from the effects of the
bullet. True enough, he might have lived on for years in his disordered
physical condition but for the wound; still, on the other hand, it is
equally probable that he might have lived, and that his sickness would
have restored him to health even, but for the constant tampering with his
stomach, which needed rest as much as the great and good man himself. No
rest for the stomach, no rest for the man, is an axiom which I would
submit to my brother practitioners, as one worthy of all acceptation. It
is being constantly proved right before their own eyes, and yet very few
have learned the lesson it teaches.]
As illustrating the influence of an out-door life, with partial or
transient fasting, I will cite
THE CASE OF MR. VICKERS.
Joseph Vickers, born and raised in England, but now of Biddeford, Me.,
whose home is near my own, and the man himself well known to me, was very
“low with consumption” at one time, when in his twenty-second year. His
disease was attributed, and without doubt justly, to a severe chill
resulting from wading the river on one of his hunting bouts, and being
compelled to dry his clothes on his back——a feat he had previously
performed repeatedly, except that on this occasion, being very much
fatigued, and night coming on, instead of continuing vigorous exercise
while his clothes were drying, he “went into camp” and “shivered
throughout the night in his soaked garments.” Declining very rapidly, with
every symptom of pulmonary consumption, his case was considered hopeless
by his friends. Medicine seeming to him useless, he gave up taking it, and
his physician consequently gave him no encouragement or hope of recovery.
His digestion was very imperfect——as he put it, “Nothing I ate seemed to
do me any good”——and to the disgust of his parents and friends he often
refused to eat anything for an entire day. Able to be up and dressed a
good portion of the time, he would spend as much of the day outdoors as
possible, and at night “never slept without a window open in the
bed-room.” Gaining a little strength, and being “badgered,” as he says,
“all the time, when at home, about eating,” and being very fond of
hunting, and not sleeping well, he would rise very early, take his gun
and, as he expressed it, would “crawl off to the woods,” and sit or lie
down until rested, and then “travel a bit and rest again,” and so spend
the entire day, taking no lunch, and eating nothing, drinking from a brook
or a spring when thirsty, returning at night, often as late as seven or
eight o’clock, when he would eat a little coarse food after resting, and
then go to bed. “A couple of weeks” of this sort of life sufficed to bring
him home at night with an “appetite for a side of sole-leather,” and he
would eat a hearty supper——always of the plainest food——and soon go to
bed. From this point his recovery was as rapid as his decline had been.
His diet has always been of the plainest sort, mostly vegetable (a large
proportion of coarse bread and fruit),——“My drink is always cold water,
and I let the rest of the family eat all the fancy stuff,” he remarked.
Mr. Vickers,——who is a devout Christian man, and his story corroborated
in every feature by others as reliable,——is now sixty-six years old,
though he appears like a robust, well-preserved man of fifty.
Excepting under very aggravated conditions, as for example, the case of
Mr. Vickers, given above, rarely does any creature ever _begin_ to have
consumption with a sound stomach, liver, and intestines. Nor can the
digestive organs become diseased, ordinarily, so long as the diet and
general regimen are even approximately correct. If we thought more of what
would “tickle” the stomach and intestines than the palate, simply, we
would banish most of our disorders; pure air, active exercise, a _clear
conscience_, and the cultivation of a spirit of cheerfulness, kindliness,
and contentment, would send the balance a-flying. Upon the importance of
cheerfulness, a recent writer, a physician with a large practice, and a
man of keen perceptions, says: “One of the most important directions of
all is personal and subjective. Cultivate with the utmost force possible
the habit of cheerfulness. No words can put this out with the strength and
weight which I should be glad to give to it. Its value is utterly beyond
estimation. The difference between meeting the common, or uncommon, trials
of life with cheerfulness or with despondency, and perhaps complaint and
grumbling, is often just the difference between life and death.”
The appetite for “sweets”——candy, syrup, sugar, and fancy dishes deluged
with sweet sauces——encouraged to an abnormal degree from infancy, and the
gratification of this appetite throughout life are prolific aids in
establishing the phthisical diathesis. There is a natural appetite for
_sweet fruits_ and this demand may be safely met by such forms of food,
but never by the unbalancing artificial sweets, or _proximate principles_
of food, as cane or beet sugar and the “bon-bons” formed from them.
Victor Hugo,——that grand man who gave us “_Les Miserables_,”——in the first
volume of the series, puts this bit of physiological wisdom into the mouth
of the witty libertine, Tholomyés, who uses it, to be sure, in a double
sense, which I need not here explain: “Now, listen attentively!” says this
oracle of the “four.” “Sugar is a salt. Every salt is desiccating. Sugar
is the most desiccating of all salts. It sucks up the liquids from the
blood through the veins; thence comes the coagulation, then the
solidification of the blood; thence the tubercles in the lungs; thence
death. And this is why diabetes borders on consumption.” I commend the
above thought to consumptives, and to the parents of fat children——the
consumptives of the future. Every grain of artificial sugar swallowed,
constitutes a tax upon the system——upon the lungs and kidneys, more
particularly——a tax upon the individual’s vitality.
Among the prolific causes of consumption in after life, is that of the
involuntary cramming and fattening of infancy, followed up during
childhood and youth by a somewhat less excessive gluttony, which is taught
inferentially by the conversation and example of the elders, as by
constantly dwelling upon the delights of the palate, arranging
entertainments which are feasts of the body, rather than of the mind, in
advance of which all classes discuss with excess of interest the palatal
pleasures of the coming “good time,” and at which all unite, if not in
gorging themselves, at least in feeding themselves for pleasure to the
disregard of the true requirements of their bodies for nutriment.
As a result of all this, sedentary persons become, like stall-fed oxen,
degenerated with fat; and this, as just remarked about children, is a
predisposing cause of consumption. A very large proportion of
consumptives, most of them, in fact, are first thus diseased; and when any
person is round and plump, or even fairly covered, so to say, and is yet
lacking in muscular power——“easily tired”——it is _prima facie_ evidence
that the muscular system is degenerated in the manner described; and if
the muscles, then the vital organs within, also. Thus we observe that
grossness is by no means essential to fatty degeneration, although all
obese persons are, of course, thus affected.
The salary of a fireman (“coal heaver”) depends upon his intelligence in
the matter of fuelling up his engine with a view to its “health,” power
and longevity; that of the cook or caterer, upon his ingenuity in devising
means to accomplish the reverse of all this in the case of the human
engine placed at his mercy.
“A well-spread board” should be described as one at which the youngest
child (whose teeth are cut) may exercise his will without let or
hindrance until, at the first indication of dallying, or “loafing,” over
his food, it is evident that he has had enough; and at which the
consumptive may eat without being tempted to overindulge, but, paying heed
to the first intimation of satiety, rise from the table with the assurance
of having performed an agreeable duty, in that he has eaten in quantity
and quality, what he can digest and assimilate. The consumptive starves,
not for want of food, but for want of digestion and assimilation. It is
impossible to emphasize this fact too strongly.
The _Scientific American_ of June 3, 1882, in an article entitled
“Tubercle Parasite,”[28] considering Dr. Koch’s theory, says: “According
to Dr. Salisbury, this disease (consumption) is one arising from
‘continued unhealthy alimentation, and must be treated by removing the
cause. This cause is fermenting food and the products of this
fermentation, viz.: alcoholic yeast and alcohol, vinegar yeast and acetic
acid, carbonic acid gas, embolism, and interference with nutrition.
Consumption of the bowels can be produced at any time in the human subject
in from fifteen to thirty days, and consumption of the lungs inside of
ninety days, by special, exclusive, and continued feeding upon the diet
that produces them——that is, food containing starch and sugar in alcoholic
and acetic acid fermentation.’” Dr. Salisbury had found this embryonic
form of the vinegar yeast in the blood, sputa, and excretions of persons
suffering with consumption. In the blood the plant forms masses by itself,
grows inside the white corpuscles, causes the fibrin filaments of the
blood to be larger in size and stronger, the red corpuscles to be ropy,
sticky, adhesive, making small clots or “thrombi,” which become “emboli”
or plugs, and block up the capillaries and blood-vessels. The growth of
the vinegar yeast in its embryonal stage, combined with the mechanical
interference with nutrition, causes abnormal growths in the substance of
organs, called tubercle; and the concurrent inflammatory results, in
addition to the chemical action of the vinegar or acetic acid, causes the
death and breaking down of the organs invaded——the lungs, for example.
That this is not opinion only is shown by the fact that over 246 swine
were, at his instance, destroyed by feeding on farinaceous food in a state
of alcoholic and vinegar fermentation, the vinegar yeast traced in the
blood, found in the excretions, and 104 of the dead swine were subjected
to _post-mortem_ examinations and their lungs found broken down and
diseased as in ordinary consumption. The same experiment was tried on a
number of men, “all healthy, and with no vegetations in the blood. They
were given plenty of exercise in the open air,” but within three months
these men had consumption of the lungs. “Certainly,” says the _Scientific
American_, “we think the evidence submitted shows that Dr. Salisbury has
come nearer to the real intimate nature of consumption than Dr. Koch or
any one we know. There is a simplicity, directness, breadth, and
positiveness rarely seen in the treatment of a medical subject. Indeed, it
is doubtful if there have been experiments so conclusive and extensive
before or since.” It must be evident to even the crudest thinker that this
fermenting process must ultimately produce the same effects when _begun in
the stomach_, and described as indigestion; and no more efficient means of
initiating this process can be imagined than that of swallowing
indigestible substances——the most wholesome food-substances may be
prepared in such a manner as to render them indigestible——or eating in
excess of the needs of the organism, and therefore of the capacity for
digestion. Thousands upon thousands of so-called healthy people are in
this way approaching the point of decline, more or less slowly, but
surely, utterly unconscious of their danger, simply because in their
ignorance they can not recognize the premonitory symptoms, of which
chronic constipation, for example, is one, and a very grave one. (See
article on this subject.)
[Footnote 28: Microscopic examination reveals the presence of a
multiplicity of fatty crystals throughout the substance of the lungs of
persons who have died of consumption. At a recent meeting of the New
Orleans Pathological Society, its President, Dr. H. D. Schmidt, whose
researches have been extended and minute, made an important microscopical
demonstration to disprove Prof. Koch’s so-called discovery as to the
bacilli of tuberculosis. Prof. Schmidt claimed to demonstrate that the
so-called bacilli, thought by Dr. Koch to be the cause of consumption,
were simply fatty crystals. Connecting with this the fact that Prof. Koch
really found certain minute living organisms which he propagated
artificially for several generations, it becomes evident to my mind (1)
that the “bacillus” is simply a natural scavenger enveloped in the
diseased tissue——the fatty crystal, or the tubercle——and (2) that its
office is really, under the circumstances, conservative to life. Nor is
this conclusion disproved by the alleged fact that the inoculation with
the bacilli, of _supposably_ healthy animals, produced the disorder: In
the first place, the little domestic pets, such as were thus operated
upon, are always, owing to their artificial surroundings, predisposed to
the disease in question, frequently falling victims to it without the aid
of inoculation, and (3) this being the case, their inoculation with a
liberal reinforcement of greedy vermin,——or, supposing that, as yet, none
were generated, their premature introduction,——would naturally tend to a
speedy and fatal termination. It makes no difference to a dead man whether
his lungs were devoured by bacilli, or simply broken down from fatty
degeneration; but to the living, it is a matter of the utmost importance
to learn the true condition of things in the premises. The idea of being
eaten alive by myriads of little vermin from which there is supposably no
escape, is enough to strike terror to the mind of a patient; but let him
know that his disease is of such a nature that (with the _aid_ of the
bacilli, perhaps,) a radical change in his manner of living affords great
assurance for the hope of its entire eradication, and he has at once an
all-sufficient motive for reform.
Dr. J. Milner Fothergill, in a letter to the _Philadelphia Medical Times_,
referring to Koch’s theory of the origin of tuberculosis, remarks, half
jocosely: “Talk of the bitterness of death! It is nothing to the shadowy
danger which overhangs us of a tubercle-bacillus getting into one’s
pulmonary alveoli in an unguarded moment, and when one’s ‘resistive power’
happens to be impaired. Shadowy in the sense of invisible, not unreal! Is
this what is meant by ‘the doom of a great city’? Is the bacillus a
relative of the poison-germ which slew Sennacherib’s host in a night? We
do not yet know the little creature intimately enough to say. But, really,
the horrors which the mind conjures up of the dangers of the bacillus in
the future are demoralizing. Suppose, now, that some change of the human
constitution should favor the bacillus, just as the potato-field did the
Colorado beetle, who had been happily quiet in his dietary of the leaves
of the deadly nightshade, but who went on the war-path when the leaves of
the other members of the Solanaceæ came within his reach. The imagination
fails to conceive what may be the fate of man,——to be slain by a foe more
remorseless than any of the plagues of Egypt. Suppose, now, that the
bacillus took such a new departure, and got ahead of our ‘resistive
power.’ Why, man would be swept off the face of the earth! What an
ignominious end, too! Man, in the plenitude of his power over the forces
of nature, slain by an insignificant little bacillus!”]
After all, excess in diet is, usually, only another term for lack of fresh
air and exercise, without which no one can become, or continue, robust.
While it is true that to command health and muscular vigor one must be
well fed, still no amount of food alone can make the right arm like that
of a blacksmith. But we can make the muscles grow on ample exercise
and——food enough; always, however, considering a constant supply of oxygen
as an essential element in the ration. The muscular system wastes——with
many is never even tolerably developed——the powers wane, because of
sedentary habits. “Inaction contravenes the supreme design of the human
constitution, and is therefore adverse to its health.”——HUXLEY. The lungs
begin to take on disease, often, because the individual does nothing to
make him _breathe deep_; exercise is not frequent and vigorous[29] enough
to cause frequent deep inspirations; the remote air-cells are in many
instances seldom, and with corset-wearers _never_, inflated, and,
consequently, the tendency is to grow together, so to say, or, rather, to
fester and slough off, as useless appendages. To form the habit of taking
long breaths in the open air, occasionally, throughout the day, would do
much to maintain the integrity of lung-tissue, aerate the blood and
prevent or cure consumption; but, after all, Nature designs that creatures
who inhabit this earth shall be “fit” for something besides drawing their
own breath.[30] To be “fit to survive” one must be of use in the world;
hence there must be employment that taxes the mental, moral, and physical
forces sufficiently to stimulate their growth and development. This, and
nothing short of this, is health, in the complete sense of the term.
_Robust health_, if one would secure it, demands that one should be much
in the open air and exposed, often, to a low temperature while taking a
great deal of vigorous exercise. To be _long-lived_, on the other hand,
requires rather that the diet be restricted to correspond with abstinence
from labor and cold, some degree of exercise in the open air, however,
being essential. The robust often wear out faster than the brain workers,
whose lives are rather on the quiet order. Worry kills ten where work
kills one.
[Footnote 29: In a badly vitiated atmosphere _inaction_ is the only
palliative; muscular exercise causes a demand for an increased supply of
oxygen, and increases the amount of carbonic acid to be eliminated,
neither of which conditions can be met except by means of pure air.]
[Footnote 30: See note 1 in Appendix, p. 275.]
The best illustration of the natural means of preventing, or curing,
consumption——in fact, of promoting and maintaining health, under any
circumstances——I have ever seen, is given in the following true story of
HOW A YOUNG GIRL CURED HERSELF.
“Then you are surprised to learn that I came within six weeks of dying of
consumption, thirty years ago, are you, doctor?” The questioner was a
bright, healthy little woman of fifty who, in the course of a consultation
about a consumptive niece, had expressed herself as having little hope of
her recovery, “because she wouldn’t do as I did when I had the
disease——and she isn’t nearly as sick as I was.” Straight as an arrow,
active and merry, looking more like forty than fifty, Mrs. E. was the last
person that any one would select as belonging to a “consumptive family,”
or of having suffered with the disease, in her own person, and yet her
mother died of it when this daughter was about 19, and the latter’s
decline was attributed to inherited tendency and long confinement in the
sick-room, during the last year of her mother’s life. “Yes, I have told
Lettie how I cured myself after the doctors gave me up, but she will not
undertake it——not now, at least——perhaps she may when she gets where I
was. Do you want me to give you my recipe for the cure of consumption,
Doctor? Tell you the whole story? Well, the way is simple, and the story a
short one, and if it will help any one I shall be very glad. I needn’t
tell you all about mother’s case——hers was the old-fashioned consumption;
she was sick a good many years, but the last year she was almost helpless
and would have no one but me to take care of her. Well, I bore up until
she died, and then I gave out; I could not go to the grave——I was in bed
during the funeral. I had not realized——none of the family had——how poorly
I had become; but now it was plain enough. I kept my bed most of the
time——could not get rested. I had been sick several weeks when my brother
was brought home ill, was taken with typhoid fever, and there was no one
to nurse him. I roused myself up and declared that I was able to do it;
and I carried the point, in spite of all father could say. Well, he was
sick nine weeks, but I gave up before he recovered. I carried him through
the worst of it, however, before I took my bed; and then I was very sick
indeed. For a while they thought I could live but a few weeks, but I
rallied and got more comfortable. I raised a great deal, and for several
months remained about the same, apparently; but the autumn came, and when
we began to shut the house up I seemed to grow worse; my cough was still
very bad, but I couldn’t ‘raise’ much, and I suffered terribly for breath.
The doctor who had been attending me——the one who had tended mother——at
last said he could do no more for me, and for some months we had no
physician, and then father called a new one——a young doctor who was
fitting himself for practice in our village. He came to see me, examined
my lungs, and I fainted away in the effort. He went out——leaving no
medicine——and had a talk with father. He said that he did not care to take
the case; that there was no hope for me; my lungs were badly ulcerated,
and I had but few weeks to live. ‘She can’t live over six weeks,[31] Mr.
B., and she may die any day. I am young, just commencing practice, and it
will injure me to have her die on my hands; and I can not help her.’ ‘At
least,’ said father, ‘give her something to relieve her suffering.’ They
did not know that I could hear them; but spring-time had come again, the
day was quite warm, and I had asked to have the window raised at the head
of my bed, and so it happened that I could hear all they said. I heard
the doctor returning, and I resolved not to take any of his soothing
drops; I had taken all I meant to. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘what have you come
back for, doctor?’ ‘Your father wished me to prescribe for you,’ said he.
‘Never mind,’ I said, firmly, ‘I shall take nothing more. You say I have
six weeks to live: I will spend them in getting rid of the medicines I
have taken the past year,’ and he went away. Soon father came in, seeming
much disappointed and grieved, and in answer to his questioning, I told
him why I had determined to take no more medicine, and what I had resolved
to do; and now I will tell you what I did, and how I came to do it. I had
read in an old English almanac——not a medical one, like the ones strewn
about everywhere now, but there was a good deal of useful information in
it——a ‘Sure Cure for Consumption,’ and it was so different from what I had
been doing, and appealed so strongly to my judgment, that I had been
thinking that if I could only make a start there might be a chance for me;
but the effort required was so great that I doubt if I should have had
courage enough to undertake it but for my resentment, upon overhearing
that conversation——to think that the doctors had given me nothing but
medicine, and that I had been eating in such a way——without any appetite,
except for some of the ‘rich’ things they were always making because I
couldn’t relish anything else. The recipe explained that the disease was
caused by lack of fresh air, outdoor exercise, and appropriate food; but I
will only tell you what I did, and you will understand all about the
reasons for it. First, I told father and the rest of the family that as I
had but six weeks to live, they must let me have my own way in everything,
and must do as I said. I could not move from the bed alone, but I had them
carry me on a comforter out on the lawn and lay me down there. ‘How was
_I_ to take exercise——when I could scarcely turn myself in bed?’ was the
question. Well, I did turn myself on one side, and, with a stick, begun to
dig a little in the ground. It looked then as though I should not do much
damage to the nice sod father had taken so much pains to make; but I dug a
little hole as large as my fist, and then rested. After a while I turned
over on the other side and dug another little hole, filled it up, and
rested again. It seemed good to rest and I felt a little better; for the
outdoor air, and the exertion I had put forth, ‘loosened’ my cough a
little, and I begun to ‘raise.’ At night they carried me back to bed. My
bed-room windows had been wide open all day, and I wouldn’t have them shut
now; but in answer to their fears about the night air and catching cold, I
said, ‘Give me clothes enough, and I will risk the night air——I’m going to
breathe pure air the next six weeks——if I live so long.’ They all felt
terribly——they thought I was shortening my life, even then——but they
yielded, finally, in everything, even to not asking me ‘if I couldn’t eat
a little of this, or that, if they would make it for me?’ I had replied:
‘No, when I feel like eating a piece of Graham bread or a potato, without
butter or salt, I will eat something——not before.’ This had occurred in
the morning, and that very night I asked for a slice of bread and ate a
little bit——as big as my two fingers, perhaps. I had them put a
teaspoonful of cayenne pepper[32] in a dish and turn warm water on it——a
quart——and let it stand overnight, and in the morning was sponged all over
in that water——the dregs turned off. I had them bathe an arm and then dry
it with a coarse towel, and rub me with it as hard as I could bear (not
very hard, to be sure), then a leg, and so on.[33] It seemed to give the
dead skin a little life; then they carried me out to my ‘work’ again! I
felt like resting after the bath, but after a while I turned over and dug
a larger hole than on the day before, filled it——partly with what I raised
from my lungs, and such stuff as it was! I could take longer breaths, too;
and after digging a minute or so I would _have_ to stop and take a long
breath, and then go on again.[34] I was thirsty a good deal, and would
drink water——all I wanted. I ate a piece of stale coarse bread and some
fruit that morning after I was rested from my first digging, and then I
kept on resting for some hours, after which I dug a little more. In the
middle of the day, when the sun came down too hot, I had an old umbrella
put over me and fastened. At night a little bit of bread and a small
potato: I ate as much as I could relish, but not a mouthful more. In this
way I kept on, day after day, and they began to see that I was gaining.
Father, who could not believe the gain was real, but rather the temporary
effect of my will, yet joked me about ruining the lawn: ‘I shall have to
turf it all over again, Lucia,’ said he, even before I could dig a hole
large enough in a day to bury a cat in, and he tried to laugh at his
little joke. I remember that I did laugh, and came near strangling in a
coughing fit in consequence, but that was a help; what I _needed_ was to
cough and raise the stuff up——those old ulcers that the doctor said my
lungs were covered with——and I found fresh air, flavored with a little
exercise, a better ‘expectorant,’ as you doctors say, than those I had
been taking. I began to feel hopeful——the novelty of the idea——digging for
my life! I took a desperate view of it——six weeks to live——‘I’ll die
fighting,’ I said to myself. It seemed almost droll——droll enough, at any
rate, to interest my mind, and I would say funny things to the others to
make them laugh, and this seemed to make them try to be cheerful and to
cheer me on. The third day, I remember that I ate the same kind of a
breakfast——just a little——and at night asked them to boil a beet! I would
have only one vegetable at a time, lest I might be tempted to overeat and
lose my appetite, and so spoil everything.[35] I was impressed with the
idea of ‘earning my living’ at outdoor work——‘by the sweat of my
brow’——and not to eat more than I earned by the exercise. I had renounced
my coffee and tea; I ate no grease of any kind, nor meat——bread, fruit,
and vegetables only——no salt or spices, pastry, pie, puddings, nor cake,
nor ‘sweets’ of any sort, except the natural, _whole_ sweet furnished by
nature, in the form of vegetables and sweet fruits. The prescription said
that some people ate too much soft food,——bread and milk, puddings, and
the like,——and that while such dishes were better than many others in
common use, still they were not the best, especially for sick people with
weak stomachs, but that dry (farinaceous) food was every way better; and
so I ate bread, or unleavened biscuit, which, after a little practice, the
girl could make very nice,——just the meal and water well mixed and moulded
stiff and baked in a hot oven,——and I ate them very slowly, chewing each
mouthful thoroughly. You can tell, perhaps, doctor, just why this should
make a difference:[36] I only know that it seemed to agree with my stomach
better. They bathed me every morning in the same way, only after a while
they did not have to work so slowly and cautiously. I could exercise more
and more, from day to day, and with less and less fatigue, and I laughed
to myself that father’s joke would prove something more than a joke; I was
bound to undo all his nice work; and I knew he wouldn’t care, so that I
could get well. After a while I could raise myself up and sit erect, and
dig a little, first on one side and then on the other; and by the time my
‘six weeks’ were up——and I told father so one day——I could dig a pretty
good grave for myself, if they wanted to bury me; only, it wouldn’t be
quite deep enough to hold me down——for I had actually raised myself to my
feet, stood alone, and walked a few steps without help. On the eighth week
I could walk about——would walk off a dozen steps, come back, sit
down——perhaps lie down. The more I did, the more I could do——always taking
care not to exhaust myself——and the more I could eat; but I took even more
care not to overeat than not to overwork: I found that the real thing was
to eat little enough——not to see how much I could eat——so that I could
increase the amount regularly, rather than to lose my appetite and eat
nothing some days, or eat without an appetite, and next day eat
enormously, perhaps, as mother used to; I wouldn’t have them ‘fix up’
anything——I was afraid of being put back. I ate but twice a day, and
sometimes my breakfast was nothing but fruit——two or three oranges or as
many apples, or a huge slice of watermelon——this was food and drink, both.
I wore the least possible weight of clothing——often removing my stockings
as well as shoes, and going barefooted and bare-armed when the weather was
very warm. I had lost all fear of taking cold, though I kept comfortable
always——throwing off clothing when too warm, and putting it on, as any
great change in the temperature made it necessary, but to the extent of my
increasing strength I endeavored to keep warm by exerting my muscles. One
day, after some months of self-treatment, and when it had become evident
that I was really convalescent, I asked brother to call Dr. Osgood (the
young doctor who refused to take my case). ‘Why, sis,’ said he, ‘you are
not in earnest?’ ‘Yes, I am,’ said I, ‘I want to tell him how to cure
consumption! You tell him I want to see him, but don’t say what for.’ He
had been away somewhere, and had forgotten all about me, of course, but
when brother spoke to him about me, he was astonished to find that I was
alive. ‘It was amazing’ he said. ‘Yes, if there is any chance of saving(!)
her I will call’——and he came. He expressed his pleasure at finding me so
well, and I suppose he thought I had come to a point where I felt the need
of his advice and a ‘tonic,’ perhaps; but I just made him listen to the
story of my self-cure, and asked him if he couldn’t advise others to do
the same way, and so do his patients more good. He was inclined to be
vexed, at first, but finally he laughed and said: ‘Really, Miss B————, I
have come here at your request, and you have prescribed for me, instead of
I for you, and I thank you for it——will pay you for it, if you will name
the price——but I could not practice in that way. Why, how many
consumptives would act upon my advice, if it was of that character? How
many, indeed, would have the second visit from me, or recommend me to
others? They would even denounce me to their friends——to every one they
saw, and I would have to go to digging in the ground myself, or leave for
other parts. No, Miss B————, you learned the true secret, and you were
“fit” to “survive” because you worked out your own salvation: you have
taught me something——a valuable lesson, I may say, and one that I shall
profit by as I have an opportunity; but we could never set up such a
reform——one doctor, nor two, nor three, alone——the time is not ripe for
it, physicians are not ripe for it, and it can only come, if it is ever to
come, by just such independent action as your case represents.’ And so he
went away, and I continued my ‘treatment.’ The next summer I had a little
flower garden of my own, watered and tended it, and, a little later,
helped about the kitchen-garden, besides taking care of my own room; and
so I went on, gaining steadily, until, within two years, I was
well——better than I had known myself since my romping days, and I have
scarcely had a real sick day since——never a serious illness from that day
to this, nearly thirty years.” “How do I keep well?” you ask. “Why, by
pursuing the same principle that cured me——the same, in fact, that would
have prevented my decline, in the first place. I never breathe ‘indoor’
air, winter nor summer, day nor night; I eat only the simplest food, and
in moderation——yet I will, sometimes, eat a little more than I need——some
meals or some days——and will have a little headache, or, perhaps, an old
tooth will ache, or there may be a little disturbance in the stomach; but
whatever it is, I eat more moderately——sometimes go without a meal; and if
anything more serious than I have named presents itself——lack of appetite,
or a bad feeling at the stomach, or a bad headache——I go all day without
eating, and keep about my work, as usual, or take a walk outdoors, and
this plan always works a cure. You see, I _dress_ right——loose garments,
no corsets, no heavy skirts hanging to my waist or hips, no smothering
flannels, except the lightest, and those only in the coldest weather; I
keep busy about something most of the time; take a good deal of exercise;
go out when I can, and bring outdoors in when I can’t go out——by having
every part of my house well ventilated and as light and ‘sunshiny’ as need
be (you see, doctor, I am not whimsically afraid of flies nor of fading
the carpet); I think of my escape, of my good health, and this makes me
cheerful. I feel sure of not getting sick——I have no anxiety on that
score,——and I try to do what good I can, in my small way, and all this is
as it should be——it is ‘healthy,’ and, all things being so, there is only
one other chance to err, and that is in eating, and so when anything
troubles me, I know what it is. So many people go wrong in all these
things——dress bad, breathe bad air, feel languid in consequence and lie
about doing nothing, indoors; eat worse food than I do, and eat more and
oftener——no wonder they are always ailing, nor that so many die. But,
Doctor, this will not cure my niece——our talking——and I don’t suppose I
have taught you anything, as I did the young doctor, so many years ago;
but if, as you say, you can tell the story for the benefit of others, I
shall be very glad indeed to see it in print. You will send me a copy of
the paper, won’t you? ‘A dozen copies?’ Well, all the better, I will send
them to my friends; they will wonder how the ‘old story’ got into the
papers.” And that is the way this history of a “Natural Cure” came to be
printed.
[Footnote 31: It is, of course, idle to speculate as to whether Miss B.
was within six weeks, or six months, of a fatal termination of her disease
under the usual treatment. Her physician expressed his honest opinion,
certainly; though had he been catechised closely, he would doubtless have
modified it somewhat, as, by saying that while she was liable to be taken
off at any time, still, she might linger along several months, or until
severe cold weather in winter, the season usually so fatal to this class
of patients,——not because it is impossible, or even difficult, to keep the
sick-room at any desired temperature, but because this end is sought to be
accomplished, largely, by shutting out “the breath of life,” and by
retaining the vitiated air, to breathe which would “chill” the healthiest
subject. “To retain foul air for the sake of its warmth is expensive
economy.”]
[Footnote 32: It was, in the author’s opinion, the _bath_ rather than the
_pepper_ which proved so beneficial.]
[Footnote 33: In practice, it will often prove that quick sponging, all
over, and brisk drying, followed, perhaps, by thorough hand-rubbing, will
be more useful than the “piece-meal” bath: with water at a comfortable
temperature, and the work quickly and skillfully performed, while it might
seem likely to occasion a severe shock to the patient, still, it is but
one “shock” instead of many, and is really far less trying, with many
patients, than the more prolonged process with its oft-repeated local
shocks. If rightly managed, the reaction from the full bath makes it
altogether the most agreeable. It is of vital importance, to secure this
warm “reaction,” and if, in any instance, there is failure in this
direction, the instant application of warming appliances——hot-water
bottles to feet, warm flannel wraps, extra blankets, etc.——is imperatively
demanded. Baths which are succeeded by chilliness are depleting, and if of
common occurrence are destructive to life; far better not bathe at all.]
[Footnote 34: See note 6 in Appendix, p. 284.]
[Footnote 35: One element which aided immensely in this remarkable cure,
was the absence of great variety in the food. Indigestion is _the_ enemy
to be overcome; and he must be “killed dead.” _Variety_ is this enemy’s
right-hand man——encouraging excess and the indulgence in questionable
articles; and, above all, prohibiting the _adaptation_ of the digestive
organs to any class of all the ailments thrust upon them. (See foot-note,
p. 213.)]
[Footnote 36: The “difference” is in the digestibility, and in guarding
against excess: Overeating is, of itself, a positive guarantee of
indigestion.[A] The advantages of the hard bread and “dry diet” are
manifold: (1) thorough mastication——calling the muscles of the mouth into
action, and while this tends to make the cheeks plump and full, the
exercise affects the various glands, and aids in the secretion of the
salivary fluids essential for the digestion of starch;[B] (2) it causes
one to eat slowly, so that each mouthful entering the stomach; is not only
thoroughly insalivated and thus prepared for stomach-digestion, but can be
thoroughly manipulated in the stomach and impregnated completely with the
gastric juice: this must be deemed a very important feature, when we
reflect that in very depraved states the digestive fluids are not as
abundant nor as readily secreted as in health. (3) Chewing strengthens the
gums and the teeth,——tends to preserve them and fit them for their
legitimate work: decaying teeth are a source, as well as a symptom, of
disease.]
[Footnote A: In accordance with a universal law of nature,——“the
conservation of energy,”——“gastric juice,” upon which digestion depends,
“is secreted from the blood by the glands of the stomach, in proportion to
the needs of the organism for food, and not in proportion to the amount of
food swallowed.” There is, therefore, a normal dyspepsia for whatever of
excess is taken. Moreover, in such cases, none of the food is well
digested.]
[Footnote B: _Ptyalin_, a vegetable matter contained in healthy saliva,
has very peculiar properties: “if mixed with starch and kept at a moderate
warm temperature, it turns that starch into grape-sugar. The importance of
this operation becomes apparent when one reflects that starch is
insoluble, and therefore, as such, useless as nutriment, while the sugar
formed from it is highly soluble, and readily oxidizable.”——HUXLEY.]
Note the special elements tending to insure success in the case of
self-treatment just given: The courage, prevalent good temper (so rarely
found in these cases), and determination to win (equally rare), did much,
very much, toward conquering her disease; but it is more than doubtful if
these alone would have sufficed: her success in winning the family over to
her radical views, or, at least, in gaining their entire co-operation, was
a marked feature looking toward a final victory. None of them ventured to
discourage her,——all joined heartily in the work. Had she sat at an
ordinary table, one crowded with “good things”; and had her friends
persisted in entreating her to eat this, that, and the other thing, it is
probable that her good resolutions would have failed, sooner or
later,——her life paying the forfeit. And this leads me to mention a most
important feature of what has come to be known as the “Salisbury
Treatment”: “Meals are to be taken at regular intervals, and the patient
should eat either alone or with those who are using the same diet, and not
sit down at a table where others are indulging in all kinds of food. He
should take a good draught——one or two cupfuls——of warm water an hour
before each meal; a sponge-bath two or three mornings,[37] and a
_comfortable_ full bath once a week. For the latter use a little pure
Castile soap, but rinse thoroughly. Air-baths and sun-baths are also of
great importance. (See ‘Air-baths,’) Flannel worn next the skin [I should
say, that the year round, cotton underwear is far better], and the
clothing frequently changed and aired. As much open-air exercise as can be
borne without fatigue, or thorough rubbing and pounding of the body [or
squeezing of the muscles of the entire body, with a firm grasp of the
attendant’s hand] morning and evening for those too weak to take
exercise.”
[Footnote 37: If desirable, this bath may be taken later in the day; but
it should _never_ occur within one hour before, nor until at least three
hours after any meal. The temperature of the water should be agreeable
with sensitive patients, but gradually lowered from day to day, until
_cool_ water becomes agreeable.]
It is the prevalent belief that hot food is desirable especially for
feeble persons, inclined to chilliness; but while smoking-hot dishes
produce a temporary feeling of warmth and comfort, this is usually
succeeded by a “reaction,” producing a still greater degree of chilliness:
the congestion excited by the presence of the hot food or drink, soon
subsides, leaving the stomach anæmic, delaying digestion, perhaps
preventing it altogether. Cool food, properly masticated, acquires in the
mouth a normal temperature, and thus enters the stomach without producing
the unnatural stimulation which arises from the ingestion of hot food, and
which is likely, in the case of feeble persons, to cause, secondarily,
most mischievous effects. A single mistake of this sort may excite
congestion of the lungs, and undo the good work of weeks of right living.
This can not seem incredible, in view of the fact that a single excessive
meal often excites an attack of congestion of the lungs in the case of
robust persons. True, in these instances the disorder is usually
attributed to “a sudden cold,” whether the victim can or can not recall
any exposure, but the fact is as I have stated. I have had many instances
like the following: A business man, accustomed to an outdoor life, rises
in the morning after a good night’s sleep, feeling as well as usual; eats
a hearty breakfast, dons his overcoat, walks briskly to his place of
business, and entering the _hot, close office_, perhaps within thirty
minutes from the time of rising from the breakfast-table, he finds himself
so hoarse that he can hardly make himself understood, and feels a pressure
at the lungs indicating a great degree of congestion. There is but one way
to explain this: a predisposition; a hot meal, rapidly eaten; active
exercise taken immediately thereafter, and while the stomach is engorged
with food——what more is needed? The wonder is, not that this man is
suddenly made sick, but, rather, that he is not oftener so.
The consumptive will often derive great benefit from a full stomach-bath
daily, consisting of about a pint of tepid water rapidly swallowed, on
rising or an hour before breakfast. This will not create nausea or excite
vomiting, unless there is occasion for these symptoms, arising from the
presence of undigested food; but it will prove healing, prevent thirst and
the necessity for drinking with, or directly after, meals——although,
whenever there is thirst, the patient should drink pure cool water,
moderately, but to his satisfaction, finally. It is better, however, as a
rule, to drink regularly, an hour or so before each meal, such an amount
as suffices to _prevent_ thirst, while not causing a feeling of discomfort
soon after drinking. A little practice, with careful observation, will
soon enable the patient to judge how much to take.
OPEN-MOUTH BREATHING.
I am not going to recommend the consumptive, nor any person, well or ill,
to do all or much of his breathing through the mouth; on the contrary, I
agree that the nostrils were designed to warm and filter the air, and that
in general this is necessary. But there are times when the atmosphere does
not require to be _filtered_ and when it had better not be _warmed_; and I
wish to do away with all fear of danger from casual or occasional
open-mouth breathing, especially in the _open air_, and in winter, or at
any season when there is freedom from dust, and regardless of the weather,
and the time of day or night. For “sore” or irritated throat and bronchi,
or oppressed lungs, I have found persistent open-mouth breathing of pure
cold air curative in its tendency; and have myself, upon occasion, gone
out on a winter’s night, to walk and breathe in this manner by the hour.
Consumptives are often subject to attacks of dyspnœa (difficult
breathing), but rarely, if ever, do they come on out of doors; it is
rather, when, having been vouchsafed a little pure respiratory food, the
lungs are again forced to respire the hot, poisoned, make-believe air of
the home, that the congestion takes place. And this may be set down as the
only danger in the premises, viz.: the return from the fresh, pure and
bracing atmosphere without, to the over-heated and under-ventilated
living-rooms. The remedy, then, for an attack under such circumstances
would be found in throwing open the doors and windows——keeping well
wrapped or warm in bed——rather than in sealing the crevices and piling
on fuel. Even _pneumonia_, most dreaded of “diseases,” in which the
lungs are congested to engorgement, is now being successfully treated
on this principle——the persistent open-mouth breathing of out-door
air, if in the winter, or the same, drawn through an ice-packed
refrigerator——(scrupulously clean and profusely ventilated), if the
weather be warm; the patient, meanwhile, being _warm_ in bed, though
never sweltered with wraps [the aim being to balance the temperature,
by cooling the head, heating the feet, and exposing and sponging the
feverish surface, as may be indicated], and supplied with a proper
face-piece to which is attached a flexible tube, through which the
cold air is passed direct to the lungs; this manner of breathing to be
_constant_ and _uninterrupted_, hour after hour, and throughout the
night, if necessary (_never_ remittent), until the temperature of the
patient, as indicated by the thermometer placed under the arm, is
reduced to about the normal point (98.2° F.), and the pressure at the
lungs relieved. The philosophy of this treatment is as evident as is
that of the playing of an engine upon the hottest part of a fire.
A WORD ABOUT THE BED.
The bed and its covering constitute the night-clothes, and for the
bed-ridden patient day-clothes as well. Therefore, we can hardly place too
much importance upon the bed and its appointments. And yet, in view of all
that has been said relating to cleanliness and wholesomeness, in a
general way, but few words are necessary to tell the story. The bed may be
of straw, even, and still, if full, fresh, and well-made, be every way
sufficient for comfort and health,——better, indeed, than a poor or
long-used mattress of any sort;——a mattress of hair, cotton, or wool makes
a complete bed. A feather bed is the worst of all. Whatever the bed may
be, it should remain open and airing whenever the patient is out of it for
any length of time; hence the bed-room should not be the sitting-room when
avoidable. Patients confined to the bed altogether, should, if possible,
have two——one for day the other for night use——each kept airing during all
the time it is unoccupied, and, when practicable, placed in the open air
and in the sunshine a portion of the day; the more the better. After the
cotton or linen sheets, the covering (of as little weight as is consistent
with comfort) should, in place of the common “comfortables,” consist of
woolen blankets, which, being porous, are less “stifling” to the body (see
foot-note, p. 171), and permit of being readily cleansed and dried; and
they should be thus treated as often as once in three or four weeks, at
least, and oftener if the thorough airing recommended is not given them.
The “sick-room” should be the “healthiest” room in the house——bright,
sunny, and made as “cheery” as possible. No “long-faces” should enter it;
there should be no “croning about”——no constant “how-do-you-feel-to-days,”
nor subdued looks or airs. Carry along a happy, cheery face and tone, or
keep out of the sick-room altogether. Above all, no mind-pictures about
eating, eating, eating——unless, the patient is past hope!
THE POSITION IN BED.
As well as when up and about, is a matter of importance to the sick or
well. With the sick, the habit of “rounding up” to the disease is every
way prejudicial. Consumptives are especially inclined to seek present ease
to their ultimate hurt. It should be one of the aims, in “lung
difficulties,” to increase the breadth of the chest in order to give more
room for the expansion of the lungs; and this demands increased efforts to
expand the lungs, and to push the shoulders back——gradually, very
gradually, never to the extreme, but with steady persistence. No radical
and immediate change must be looked for; none can be accomplished, in any
direction, whether in the shape of the body, quality of lung tissue, or
breathing power; but a gradual transformation may be inaugurated, and
ensured by means of persistent effort, as the general health improves. It
is best to lie, at least much of the time spent in bed, as nearly flat
upon the back as possible, slightly inclining toward the side, or
alternating between the two positions, with the head low; arms and legs
“at ease,” the latter not drawn or “curled” up, but slightly relaxed. If
the general regimen is strictly hygienic, the position as thus described
will, so far from working any harm, prove of advantage——favoring free
breathing, as well as the fullest rest of the body. Where there is
shortness of breath and difficulty in breathing, the patient is inclined
to cultivate the habit of narrowing the shoulders, and so bolstering
himself in bed as to still further shorten the breath, thus temporarily
easing the difficulty, but finally increasing the disease. He needs to
courageously take the opposite course (never rashly, however), and meet
the consequences, which are likely to be manifested in some increase of
coughing and raising——the very things he needs to do, but which he is apt
to shrink from as much as possible. In avoiding natural “expectorants,”
the necessity for artificial ones seems to arise. In the one case he
raises with some effort what, in his present state, may be described as
the normal amount of mucus; in the other, expectoration is easier because
there is more to raise. The former is curative; the latter tends to
fatality.
Well knowing that sexual indulgence constitutes one of the most fruitful
causes of this disease——of decline, in short, however exhibited——I will
conclude by saying, that the consumptive should _never_ depart from the
rule of strict continence. (See Appetite.) No language can exaggerate the
importance of this injunction for a person who is even threatened with
decline, if he means to eradicate his disease. The sexual and the nervous
systems (including the brain) act and react upon one another, keeping both
abnormally alert, and these upon the digestive and assimilative, through
the sympathetic, altogether making a quadrangular fight well calculated to
impair——to break down, indeed——the strongest constitution; while with the
less vigorous (often the most lascivious; or, maybe, the victim of a
libidinous but otherwise considerate companion) the case is hopeless,
unless the true remedy is applied. The patient should sleep alone, if
possible, not even the husband or wife sharing the bed——a rule which, from
every point of view, is of importance to both the patient and the
attendant.
* * * * *
NOTE.——The underlying principle of this work prohibits the idea
of a specific and exclusive treatment for this, that, and the
other _disease_ mentioned; for these are named simply in order
that we may make a beginning toward understanding the term
_sickness_: the entire volume, from preface to finis, is a
treatise on the origin of sickness, its prevention and cure. In
view of this, we can not leave the consumptive here, while the
dyspeptic, the rheumatic, or the _douloureux_-tic is invited to
a consideration of his peculiar symptoms,——for these, in large
measure, are mere accidents, since the rheumatic of to-day may
be the paralytic of to-morrow, and the dyspeptic of this year
the consumptive next, and so on. But all classes, and all who
wish to inform themselves as to what makes pain and sickness,
and what ends these symptoms, should study carefully the various
chapters, omitting none.