Practical suggestions for the prevention of consumption / by G. Calvert Holland.

Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical suggestions for the prevention of consumption / by G. Calvert Holland. 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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    STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS prevent the due elaboration of food, how light or simple soever it may be. They are, therefore, causes which develope, in an important degree, the con- sumptive predisposition, and in a corresponding ratio feed the disease when it exists. The consideration of these principles in all their relations to the powers of life, has been suggestive of measures in the treatment of consumption which had not previously occurred to the mind. Our attention has not been confined to the investigation of the puLnonary affection, but has also been directed to the study of the various causes which aggravate it, among which the derangement of the abdominal viscera, in whatever form it may display itself, whether manifested by distension, tenderness, or by any structural or functional indications, demands our particular examination. The contemplation of these principles presenting in a comprehensive, and at the same time in a definite form, the character and relations of the vital powers, has brought strongly home the conviction, that the correction of the morbid conditions will rarely be satisfactorily accomplished by internal remedies alone. They are to be reached beneficially, and in such a way as to give tone and vigour to the constitution generally, by acting from witJiout, inwards. We have the whole surface of the body on which to operate, abounding in nerves and blood-vessels, every one of which is a part of an uninterrupted chain extending to the minutest molecule of organized matter. Sound is not more regu- larly transmitted through space, by the successive im- pulses communicated to the air, than does an impres-