The influence of civic life, sedentary habits, and intellectual refinement, on human health, and human happiness : including an estimate of the balance of enjoyment and suffering in the different gradations of society / by James Johnson, Esq. surgeon to His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence.

  • Johnson, James, 1777-1845.
Date:
[1820]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The influence of civic life, sedentary habits, and intellectual refinement, on human health, and human happiness : including an estimate of the balance of enjoyment and suffering in the different gradations of society / by James Johnson, Esq. surgeon to His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    which suffer most from intemperance in drink; and it appears to me, that this occurs more from the subsequent collapse, than from the previous excite- ment. After a debauch, the power of the heart is greatly weakened. It cannot keep the arterial system proportionally distended, and hence the blood accumulates in the venous system; or, in other words, congestion in the veins of the liver and brain obtains, with great derangement of func- tion, ending ultimately in lesion of structure in these organs. In the liver it manifests itself by flying or un- easy sensations in the right side, or across the sto- mach; flatulence; acidity; clay-coloured evacua- tions; sallow complexion; mental despondency; fickleness or irritability of temper; pink, or other urinary sediment; disagreeable dreams; tender- ness on deep pressure under the margin of the right ribs; occasional palpitation or fluttering a- bout the heart, or pit of the stomach, &c. When this train of symptoms commences after irregulari- ty of living, or indeed after any mode of life, the functions of the liver and digestive organs are de- ranged, and there is but one step farther to organic or incurable disease. This is the moment for a