Letters upon the effects of alcohol as a preventive to tubercular formations and deposits / by Guilford D. Sanborn.

  • Sanborn, Guilford D.
Date:
1856
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letters upon the effects of alcohol as a preventive to tubercular formations and deposits / by Guilford D. Sanborn. 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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    LETTER II. THE NATURE AND CHARACTER OF CONSUMPTION, AND OP THE SUBSTANCE OF TUBERCLE. The researches and discoveries which have been made in Animal and Human Chemistry within the past few years, have thrown more light upon, and imparted more practical knowledge concerning the nature and pathology of the disease called Con- sumption, than have all the investigations made during the three thousand years previous. Nor is it strange that the attention of the earliest physi- cians should not have been directed to the history of this disease, which was then one of the rarest of human maladies, and only known as an occa- sional and mysterious cause of death. Then it de- stroyed only hundreds, where now it sweeps off its hundreds of thousands. The question is at once asked, What is the cause of the increased and increasing mortality from this disease, whose very name has become a dread in all civilized countries ? It is a fact which no intelligent person will deny, that in pro- portion as nations have advanced in a knowledge of the arts and sciences, the spread and fatality of Consumption has 'increased in the same ratio. The opinion of the early physicians as to ivhat Consumption is, where it has its origin, its causes, and how these produce their well-known effects, were strange, crude and imperfect, as modern sci- ence has shown. Yet it seems still more strange that so little advancement has been made by the profession at large, in obtaining a knowledge of this disease at the present day,while thousands are seen falling by it on the right hand and on the left. I venture the assertion that nine-tinths of the physi- cians of this city and of this country have never given their strict attention to this subject, and know as much of what Consumption is as did Hip- pocrates, Paracelsus, Boeriiaave and Sydenham, and, in truth, very little more. To use an expres- sion common among the people, it has been a mat- ter of guess work' with almost all. The older phvsicians guessed that Consumption was pro- duced by some morbid flux in the blood; but as to what that morbid flux or material was, they had no knowledge. The same idea that Consump- tion depends on the presence of some kind of morbid material in the blood, is entertained at the present day by many wise old ladies, in common with physicians; and it is not very far from the truth, if we will only get, first of all, a clear un- derstanding of what the nature and origin of this morbid material is. The true method of studying the human system, is to study it as a chemical compound. Man is a mass of chemical materials—as much so as the rocks under his feet, or the trees in the forest.— Many of the changes always going on within this citidel of life are chemical. Investigators have at last ceased to speculate about diseases, and taking the crucible and retort in hand, have entered into the living body—analyzing blood, flesh and hone —the worn-out substanbes cast-off from the sys- tem, and the food that builds it up anew. The path whicli Liebiq was the first to mark out, has been faithfully trodden by his colaborers, until at last we have learned the number and proportion of elements that go to make up every tissue of the body—every article of food, and every product of disease. Not only have we learned the elements ot the human body, but also that two hinds of forces are at all times at work within it, both necessary to life, and neither of which should be allowed to overbalance the other. These are: first, the vital forces, which go to build up and sustain the body; and secondly, chemical forces, which decompose, destroy and carry off its sub- stance. Strange, but true it is, that the destroying forces are just as necessary to life and health as the repairmy; without decay, to go hand in hand with supplg, life covld not be sustained. As the burning away of coal or wood generates heat to warm and comfort us, so the burning away of suitable material within the human body supplies vital for- ces, (so long as the blood and organs arc in a[natural condition, and nutrition furnishes a due supply of firm and normal fibre,) the vital heat, power and energy which constitute life perfect, or health.— Without chemical change, or waste, life dies out like an extinguished lamp ; without vital or recupera- tive power to replace what the former is every mo- ment stealing away, lite dies out, on the other hand like a lamp whose oil has been consumed. Life, then, is & process of combustion. The agent which consumes is oxygen, a gas which forms one- fourth of the atmosphere, and which enters the system through its great furnace—the lungs. So long as the vital flame is continually supplied with fresh fuel, life continues ; but when the fuel fails, or the system loses its power to turn it to use, then life must cease. Then oxygen performs its work of destruction, unchecked by the repairing forces, and the result is the final decomposition of the body which, it is thus seen, is also a slow combustion. Let me not be misunderstod on this point. Oxy- gen is neccessary to all life. But its action is friendly to ■ the system only so long as the vital powers of the latter are capable of promptly and completely making good again the waste which its action occasions, by the digestion and deposit of new nutritive material. When the vital powers fail to do this, wasting and disease must ensue. How strange the part which oxygen plays in sustaining animate existence! It is the great vivi- fying principle of all life ; yet at the same moment the grand destroyer, and finally the agent of disso- lution. It seizes upon the solid rocks, and they crumble to powder; it devours iron and most metals with rust; and under its slow and silent action the ma- jestic oak and the god-like form of man become in a few years reduced to an impalpable dust! A sensible citizen of Milwaukee lately made prepara- tions to burn the body of his deceased wife, but his design was prevented by the interference of the community. He stated, and very truly, that whether her body were consumed in the flames or silently mouldered in the grave, in either case its decomposition would be effected by the same agent, and would be essentially the same process. And surely, need not true intelligence and good taste revolt at this more rapid and less offensive mode of decay. In another point of view, life is a conflict; al- though I do not mean to be understood in the Scriptural or the poetical sense. It is a conflict be- tween conservative and destructive forces. Health, which is Ufeperfect, consists in the equilibrium of these two sets of forces. As has has been truly said by the distinguished Liebig, Disease occurs when the sum of vital force is weaker than the act- ing cause ot disturbance —that is, of destructive chanqe. Again, Death is that condition in which all resistance, on the part of the vital force, cntire- | ly ceases. But, to make the idea still more clear, he says, A deficiency of resistance, vnali/vingpart to the cause of waste is, obviously a deficiency of re- sistance to the action of the oxygen of the atmosphere.'1