On the value of phosphorus, as a remedy for loss of nerve power and functional disorders of the nervous system, induced by over-work and the exigencies of modern life : with formulae and directions for treatment / by Edmund A. Kirby.

Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the value of phosphorus, as a remedy for loss of nerve power and functional disorders of the nervous system, induced by over-work and the exigencies of modern life : with formulae and directions for treatment / by Edmund A. Kirby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    induces decay of tissue. i6 PHYSIOLOGICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL charged from the body, are always thrown off in connec- tion with the mineral substances which enter into their composition. This constant discharge of Phosphorus and of inorganic principles, forming as they do an essential part of the organism, necessitates their introduction with the food, in order to maintain the normal constitution of the parts. As these principles are as necessary to the consti- tution of the body as any other, they must be considered as belonging to the class of alimentary substances. This conclusion is inevitable if alimentation be regarded as the supply of material for the regeneration of the organism. Phosphorus ^^^^y P^^^ °^ organism we have seen is constantly undergoing physiological decay and repair, and this molec- ular change is a necessary and inevitable condition of life. When the balance is lost, and the destructive process from any cause more than counterbalances the constructive process, whether it be owing to a deficient supply of new material or to excessive activity of function, the result is the same, the organism falls into decay, and its functions are thrown into disorder. As, therefore, it is essential to the condition which we call Health, that waste be duly compensated by the appropriation of new materials, it follows that if this process fail in any particular, we have ill-health as an inevitable consequence ; not only are the functions of the body enfeebled or perverted, but organic deterioration takes place, and finally functional activity is completely arrested. Phosphorus Pliosphorus is food in precisely the same sense that as a food. ^ , f J common salt is food; and it is a notable physiological fact, that those alimentary substances which are richest in this inorganic principle are found to be the best to sustain brain work, renovate nerve tissue, and so to restore nervous energy when enfeebled by disease or temporarily depressed by excessive activity. By the addition of a minute quan- tity of Phosphorus to our food, we increase its nutritive value and brain sustaining power. The greater the func- tional activity of brain and nerve the greater the disinte-