Water versus hydropathy, or, An essay on water, and its true relations to medicine / by Henry Hartshorne.

  • Hartshorne, Henry, 1823-1897.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Water versus hydropathy, or, An essay on water, and its true relations to medicine / by Henry Hartshorne. 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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    body. The blood containing according to Berzelius T9oVo> an(J tne lymph and all the secretions nearly the same proportion, its presence is indispensable, so far as we know, to the existence of all living beings. Spallanzani and others make exception in the case of mosses and some infusorial animals, but it would certainly be most difficult to prove their assertion. Thales, Paracelsus, Van Helmont and Boyle, reckoned water the stamen of all things. Sir I. separate the strata a little farther, more water will sink down, &c. Hot sprinp-s may be explained on the same principle, only the water does not arrive at so great a depth before it is again returned to the surface. In an essay by T. Jameson (1788), an analogous idea is suggested, with regard to the spring waters of Bath. It is interesting also to find in one of the Greek authors the following passage; o<ra>v aa =u 7r»yzi w. Trn^tuv » tire o^cv S-e/i^a vSctTO. irrtv, h triJ~»i>os ymr*t, » ^dhx-oc, « return 7r*vr'x vtto fiin; yivov rou SififAou But this hypothesis does not seem to me necessary to explain the supply of great lakes, or of Niagara. An analogy to the process, by means of rain, and springs and streams joining together, is furnished by the circulation of living beings. At each contraction of the heart of a whale, 10 or 15 gallons pass out through an aorta a foot in diameter: yet all this is supplied by the minute capillary circulation. Whcwell (Bridgcwater treatise) con- sidcrs the other theory to be erroneous so far as regards the supply of springs from the sea, or subterranean reservoirs. The only argu- inent, however, by which he sustains this assertion, is drawn from calculations made by Dalton, (Manchester Memoirs, v. 357) of the amount of rain, evaporation, &c, in England ; without mentioning, at least, if considering, those elements of the discussion arising from the immensity of our American Lakes, the Niagara cataract, and from hot springs, &c.