A few remarks on climate : and on the rational treatment of affections of the throat and lungs by means of atmospheres of soothing properties : with an explanation of the action and use of respirators / by Julius Jeffreys.

  • Jeffreys, Julius, 1800-1877.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A few remarks on climate : and on the rational treatment of affections of the throat and lungs by means of atmospheres of soothing properties : with an explanation of the action and use of respirators / by Julius Jeffreys. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    of cases, unable to endure the action of untempered air. Hence the symptoms that this membrane is being irritated by the air inhaled, namely, pain on air entering, or difficulty of breathing untempered air, soreness or tickling about the throat, hoarseness or cough, are, one or other of them, present in nearly all affections—asthma, consumption, or simple bronchitis, &c. Since warmth and moisture cannot be applied to the inside of the windpipe, air-tubes, &c, in the liquid form, as in fomentations, but whatever enters these organs must be in the form of air or vapour, it was obviously a desideratum, much to be sought, that we should have at command means for fomenting the inside of the lungs, continually, by & climate of just such warmth and moisture as might, in each case, be found most suitable to the feelings. If possible, this fomenting climate should not surround the whole body, but should act only on the lungs, as keeping a person day and night in a warm bath would be an error where only a continued local fomentation was wanted. Hence, for many pulmonary invalids, no natural climates are exactly suitable. Those which suit the lungs by their warmth and moisture, after a time too often prove debilitating to the whole frame, by their relaxing action on the skin. Sucli is the tendency even of the climate of parts of the south of England, and of Pau and other places on the Continent, in the summer; while in the winter, none of them are warm enough for the lungs of the delicate. I have met with invalids from the different stations most suited to the lungs, who, after a time, had been compelled to leave them from their debi- litating tendency.* Yet the invalid does well in visit- * Although none even of these are in winter warm enough, without the Respirator, for the lungs of many of the invalids whose systems are debilitated by them.