He is a deceiver. Let us be wary of him.
We have been too negligent in this matter. Let us remember that prevention
is far better than cure.
The slight fatigue on the least exertion we have counted as "nothing." The
hectic flush of the cheeks is too often mistaken for a sign of health. The
cursory pains of the chest, or left side, or under the shoulder-blades,
are disregarded, or, if noticed at all, are mentioned as though "of no
account." The slight hacking cough is scarcely heeded; for do not people
often cough without having consumption, and without raising blood? True,
true; and this is the stronghold of the deceiver.
Consumption is a disease which is not entirely confined to the lungs. It
is often a depraved condition of the system, particularly the blood. There
is a "consumption of the blood," and a variety of morbid phenomena, which
cannot be expressed in the single word consumption. It not unusually
results in a scrofulous predisposition. An hereditary predisposition may
or may not be the cause. If the former, its development must depend upon
some exciting cause, which will be mentioned hereafter. The intermarrying
of persons of like temperaments and constitutional dispositions inevitably
results in children of scrofulous and consumptive diathesis.
[Illustration: A NATURAL POSITION.]
[Illustration: AN UNNATURAL POSITION.]
A neglected cold, cough, or catarrh may soon develop this fatality. The
peculiar changes in females at certain periods of life often awaken the
slumbering enemy. Teething in infancy not unfrequently develops the
scrofulous element, and a wasting of the system--either _marasmus_ or
_tabes mesenterica_--follows, which, under the best treatment, may prove
fatal.
The slip-shod, doubled-up way that many people have of lying, sitting, and
standing, are conducive to consumption.
Badly-ventilated school-houses have heretofore been a source of great
injury to children, developing scrofula and consumption in constitutions
where it might have remained latent during their lifetime. Every
reflecting parent should rejoice in the improvements which have been made
during the last few years in the matter of ventilation in buildings,
particularly in churches and school-rooms, although janitors, porters, and
teachers have as yet too limited ideas on the subject of wholesome air.
The dry furnaces are a very objectionable feature, and not conducive to
health.
_Early Symptoms._--Fatigue on the least exertion; a languid, tired feeling
in the morning; rosy tint of one or both cheeks during the latter part of
the day, caused by unoxygenized blood rushing to the surface; swelling of
the glands of the neck, or elsewhere; enlarged joints; paleness of the
lips; areola under the eyes; sensitiveness to the air; chills running over
the body; taking cold easily; catarrhal symptoms; premature development of
the intellect; and early physical maturity, are among its initiatory
indications. Also, when the disease is located in the lungs, spitting of
white, frothy mucus, or blood, with catarrhal symptoms; cough, which is
noticed by others before by the patient; hacking on retiring, or early in
the morning; varied appetite; tickling in the throat; short breath on
exertion, with rapid pulse.
_Second Stage._--Cough, and difficult breathing; increased difficulty of
lying on one side; sharp, short pains; diminution of monthly period;
swelling of the lower extremities, leaving corrugation on removing the
hose and garters at night; raising greenish yellow matter, with (at
times) hard, curd-like substance; sweating easily (sometimes the reverse);
night sweats; restless, feverish, either dull or sharp bright cast to the
eyes. Sputa increases to the
_Third Stage._--Diarrhoea not unusually supervenes; spitting of blood; the
person emaciates rapidly; the face changes from a bloated to a cadaverous
appearance, with hectic fever; the patient faints easily; debility
increases with the cough, or hæmoptosis occurs often, until death finally
closes the scene.
These are merely some of the external symptoms. Let the patient mark them,
not so much to fear, as to provide against them. To be forewarned is to be
forearmed. I caution you against the causes, and give you the benefit of
my extensive experience with this disease, both in New England and three
years in the South, that you may avoid its development by attention to
rules for health and longevity.
If this fearful disease was better understood by the people, it would
prove far less destructive of human life. Undomesticated animals do not
die of it; domesticated ones do. What does that imply? That the people
have engendered the disease! Let the "people," then, take the first step
in preventing its ravages.