A lecture on the physiological and therapeutical uses of water : delivered to the students of the Ohio Medical College at the opening of the session of 1839-40 / by M.B. Wright.

  • Wright, M. B. (Marmaduke Burr), 1803-1879.
Date:
[1840]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on the physiological and therapeutical uses of water : delivered to the students of the Ohio Medical College at the opening of the session of 1839-40 / by M.B. Wright. 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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    Indeed, the amount of the latter, compared with the former, is proportionally large. According to the estimate of Chassieur, the entire frame consists of not less than nine parts of fluids, to one of solids. This experimentalist asserts, that a dead body, weighing one hundred and twenty pounds, may be reduced to one-tenth of this weight, by being dried in a hot oven. Several of the adult mummies, removed from the caveties of Teneriffe, did not weigh over seven pounds. To these examples, excep- tions, may be taken, yet, they are sufficiently accurate to answer a general purpose. Again, water preserves a healthful consistance, and due amount of circulating material, of which the vessels would other- wise be deprived, by the action of the exhalents and secretory organs. It is difficult to ascertain the precise amount of fluid which escapes from the body in health, through the different emunctories, varied, as it is, by exercise and temperature ; we' cannot estimate, therefore, the extent of the demand for renewed supplies. Between the absorbents of the stomach, for instance, and the exhalents of the skin, there is a strong sympathy of action, and when perspiration is copious, thirst is increased. So, also, when a large quantity of liquid has been taken into the stomach, and carried into circulation, the perspirable vessels are called upon to eliminate the excess. We are sometimes astonished, at the large and rapid accu- mulation of fluid, exhaled into the caveties of the body, under the influence of disease. An old gentleman of my acquaintance, residing in the interior of this State, labored under dropsy of the abdomen. In the short period of one year, over three barrels of serum were drawn from him, by the ordinary process of tapping. In the form of baths, water was employed at an early period, in the history of the world. During the Patriarchal age, cleans- ing the body, constituted an item of Christian duty. Jacob commanded his family not to go up to Bethel to offer sacrifice, until their bodies and their garments had been purified. By the Jews, cleanliness of the body, was intimately associated with high moral perception. It was deemed essential, that the external as well as internal man, should be cleansed of all im- purity, before officiating in the services of the temple ; and it was conceived, that the proselyte from Heathen to Jewish faith, received with more profit the expositions of the Law during immersion in the river. The believers in the Mahometan creed, in obedience to the injunctions of their prototype, wash portions of their body daily, before repeating each of their Five Prayers. Indeed, baptism in some form is practiced by religious denomi-