Anti-Lancet, or, The destructive practice of bleeding, &c., exposed and denounced : showing the principles of life and death, and the origin of all diseases with a description of the most efficacious medicines ever made known to the world for their relief and cure / by Charles Rooke.

  • Rooke, Charles.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anti-Lancet, or, The destructive practice of bleeding, &c., exposed and denounced : showing the principles of life and death, and the origin of all diseases with a description of the most efficacious medicines ever made known to the world for their relief and cure / by Charles Rooke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Anger ml ill temper cause depression of nervous power^J** »d1o%s-tempere/ people have generally, ^^^2 S; ™ doubt, id this important fact in view, when he made Caesar exclaim :— “ Let me Lave men about me that axo fat, * Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o mgbts. Yonder Cassius bas a lean and hungry look, f He thinks too much; sucb men are dangerous. §§31Isli& KS so “u on? peevish, crabbed individual destroy the comfort of a numerous household, no matter how blameless every other member may be. Grief and suspense.— I have known a sudden fit of intense grief, m con- sequence of an unexpected family bereavement, change the hair from black to grey in one night, and lay the body completely prostrate. Suspense has the same depressing effect on both body and mind : During the Crimean war most of the high families of England were involved in a common distress; and often, from suspense, mothers, wives, and sisters were alarmed at the first appearance of a daily paper on the breakfast-table, and had scarcely courage to look at it. Peculiar ailments were brought upon several. 1 Oh, said a mother ^ whose son was an officer in the army of the Crimea-“ my pams have returned! Constant fear struggling with hope—constant hope struggling with fear—life even more agonising than death ; for the report of her son’s death would bring quiet grief and uniform sorrow; hut the alternating doubt and uncertainty— the suspense, the despair—combined to depress nervous power, and thus to reproduce the rheumatic disease. During that same terrible period, frequent instances occurred of young brides of a few weeks apparently growing into aged, grey-haired widows, not to be recognised by those who saw them a few months before. Such are the powerful effects produced on the body by a mind ill at ease. Sudden surprise and fright.—These emotions of the mind exert an extraordinary influence on the body; in some cases instantaneously sus- pending the action of the stomach by withdrawing all nervous power. If a person receives sudden distressing news on sitting down to dinner, although he were as hungry as a wolf the moment before, his appetite would immediately leave him. Sudden mental emotions will produce sudden illness :— I was once called on to attend a lady whose only son had long been absent in a foreign country, and from the lack of intelligence it was supposed he was dead. On entering the patient’s apartments I found her stretched on a sofa, and incapable of moving. Her bodily powers seemed completely suspended; her pulse was scarcely perceptible, and a death-like aspect pervaded her features. On perceiving my approach, she faintly murmured, “It is over, it is over; I am dying.” I inquired into the circumstances of the case, and was informed by a domestic that the patient had jnst come in from her usual morning’s walk, and had sat down to breakfast, when at that moment a wandering minstrel commenced singing under her window the beautiful song beginning with these pathetic words, “ The absent will return, the long, long lost be found!” These words were scarcely uttered when the lady shrieked, “Never! Ah! never, never ! He will never return! ” and fell senseless on the floor. One fainting fit succeeded another; suitable restoratives were applied, but it was many days ere she recovered. - I read on May 9, 1857, of a labouring man who was drinking and singing at a public- house near Heading. The song, was “ Annie Laurie;” and when he came to the words, “ I’ll lay me down and dee,” he threw his head back. The persons present thought he did it for effect; after waiting a short time they endeavoured to rouse him, but he was dead.