The influence of the atmosphere, more especially the atmosphere of the British Isles, on the health and functions of the human frame : embracing observations on the nature, treatment and prevention of the principal diseases resulting from sudden atmospherical transitions ; and unfolding original views and fundamental principles for the prolongation of life, and conservation of health. To which are added practical researches on the pathology, treatment, and prevention of gout and rheumatism in all their proteian forms. An essay / by James Johnson, M.D.

  • Johnson, James, 1777-1845.
Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The influence of the atmosphere, more especially the atmosphere of the British Isles, on the health and functions of the human frame : embracing observations on the nature, treatment and prevention of the principal diseases resulting from sudden atmospherical transitions ; and unfolding original views and fundamental principles for the prolongation of life, and conservation of health. To which are added practical researches on the pathology, treatment, and prevention of gout and rheumatism in all their proteian forms. An essay / by James Johnson, M.D. 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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    In a most extensive class of diseases, whose treatment has been hitlierto very puzzling, the stomach, in company with the liver and intestines, sympathises to an extent that is little imagined. I mean the variety of cutaneous and eruptive complaints. From the mildest to the most inveterate of these, there is scarcely one which is not more or less con- nected with derangements of the above-mentioned organs, but particularly the liver, and consequently under the con- trol or injfluence of remedies directed to them. It is en- tirely through the medium of this sympathy that the prac- tice of Abernethy and some other ingenious physicians has been so successful, where the local or external afiection has been considered as only symptomatic of a more general and internal disorder. If we observe the effects which a single glass of a warm stimulating liquid has upon the surface of the body, when taken into the stomiuch, we cannot wonder at the various and complicated affections of the skin pro- duced by error in food and drink. Indeed the connection or sympathy in question has not escaped even vulgar ob- servation, since rashes and eruptions on the skin, are (with great truth too) every day ascribed to peculiar kinds of food and drink disagreeing with the stomach. Familiar examples are hourly exhibited, in what are called surfeits^ and if we examine those who have delicate skins, the day subsequent to a debauch, when the functions of the stomach, liver, and bowels, are all out of order, we shall find the most marked corresponding alteration in the feeling, ap- pearance, and function of the surface of the body ; an alteration which cannot easily be described by words, but may be readily detected by an observant eye. By this mark alone, I have often been able to trace the origin of febrile illness to debauches, where it was the object of the patient to deny any such cause. This subject will be re- sumed again when we come to the Cutaneo-Hepatic Si/m- path?/, as it is one of the utmost importance ; but it may be here remarked that i\\e sympathy in question (Cutaneo- Gastric) helps to explain the success of certain remedies in syphilitic and Pseudo-syphilitic diseases affecting the skin ; for instance the celebrated Lisbon Diet drink of old, and the modern decoction of Sarsaparilla with antimonials ;* which, by acting on the stomach, and through sympathy, on the skin, have contributed so much to the removal of cutaneous defadations. * Vide Carmicfaael on Pseudo-Syphilitic Diseases. E