"Is it true that consumption of the lungs is ever cured?" is a question
which is often seriously asked.
"O, yes," I reply.
"What are the proofs?"
Where on dissection we find cicatrices,--places in the lungs where
tubercles have existed, sloughing out great cavities, which have healed
all sound, the scar only remaining--what then? Here is positive proof that
consumption had been at work, was repelled by some means, and the patient
had recovered, subsequently dying of some other disease, or from accident.
Such is the fact in many cases. It is an error--fatal to thousands--to
suppose that the lungs, of all substance in the body, cannot be healed.
Yet it is a fact patent to most educated physicians, that many cases of
consumption are cured in this country, while others are prolonged, and the
patient made comfortable during many years.
Change of climate may be much towards saving a patient. Before deciding
upon such change, consult your physician. Ought not he to know best? A
climate adapted to one constitution may be quite unsuited to another. What
a wise provision in Providence in giving this little world a variety of
climates! There are certain portions of the States and world where
consumption seldom prevails. The climate of California and the western
prairies, as also some portions of the South away from the coast, is less
conducive of lung and throat diseases than the more bleak and changeable
climate of New England and the Northern States. A change is only
beneficial in those cases where there is a mere deficiency of vitality in
the system. If the disease depends upon a scrofulous or other taint in the
system, one gains little by going from home. Change of climate does not
alter the condition of the system materially, so much as it relieves one
from atmospheric pressure, reducing thereby the demands upon his small
stock of vitality,--just as some places are less expensive in which to
live, and your funds hold out longer. The writer resided in the Southern
States during three cold seasons, and carefully studied the effects of
changes. He has two brothers in California, who, during the past ten
years, have often written respecting the climate west of the Rocky
Mountains. If ever called upon to decide on a climate for a friend or
patient who had determined to change from this, I would advise him, or
her, to select California.
Do not change too late! going away from home and friends to die among
strangers....