Diphtheria : its history, symptoms, cause, and radical, speedy cure, without the use of poisonous medication: scarlet fever, and its successful treatment : measles : with causes of throat diseases : catarrh and kindred constitutional disturbances / by Melville C. Keith.

  • Keith, Melville C. (Melville Cox), 1835-1903.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diphtheria : its history, symptoms, cause, and radical, speedy cure, without the use of poisonous medication: scarlet fever, and its successful treatment : measles : with causes of throat diseases : catarrh and kindred constitutional disturbances / by Melville C. Keith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    almia we know. But no diphtheria, nor anj^ throat dis- ease which has the characteristic 'odor, or fetid putre- factive exudation as comipion in North America. Where then is Diphtheria? In Euroj^e, Holland, Spain, France, England. In North America above 20 degrees of latitude north, and below 60 degs. N. Here dwells the scourge, and in this area must we look for the cause, always bearing in mind the testimony before us. Air and water have no appreciable influence. Climate none. Neither do the -seasons. We must re- turn to the consideration of the air, water and combusti- ble material, (food) in England and America wdiere the people were simultaneously attacked with diphtheria in 1857. Such is the testimony of medical writers. The following is an English classification of daily combustible matter and it shows upon its face the vast differences in composition to the diet of the nations we have mentioned. We believe the list is taken from a public institution but it does not change the fact that the articles are those which enter largely into the daily life of the English people. Classes of food taken by a healthy person, daily: (Church, Page 5, Art. food.) Bread 18 oz., butter 1 oz., milk 4 oz., bacon 2 oz., potatoes 8 oz., cabbage 6 oz., cheese 3^ oz., sugar 1 oz., salt f oz., water in tea or coffee or beer, 66^ oz., weighing 6 lbs., 14|- oz., that is to say a healthy person was supposed to live on this amount daily. It now becomes an important question to ascertain in what respect the combustible matter taken into the human system (as food,) differs in the latitude named where the diphtheria exists' from the countries where there is no diphtheria. Evidently, bacon, meats, oils, butter, milk, rice, wheat, rye, barley, oranges, pine-apples, dates, figs, bananas, yams, bread-fruit, clams, fish, tea or coffee, wine or liquors, do not tend to produce the disease. Since by