A treatise on diet : with a view to establish, on practical grounds, a system of rules, for the prevention and cure of the diseases incident to a disordered state of the digestive functions / by J.A. Paris.

  • Paris, John Ayrton, 1785-1856.
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on diet : with a view to establish, on practical grounds, a system of rules, for the prevention and cure of the diseases incident to a disordered state of the digestive functions / by J.A. Paris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    with more tranquillity than that of thirst, but he will survive longer under the privation of solid than of liquid aliment.* Unfortunately, however, those instincts which nature implanted in us for our guid- ance have been eradicated by the habits of artificial life: thirst is so rarely experienced, that the very sensation is associated with the idea of disease. The consequence is, that we have been abandoned * to the control of our caprice in the selection and use of these agents,—a circumstance which has given origin to numerous disorders. The quantity of diluents which each person may require will depend upon individual peculiarity, climate, nature of the solid aliment, &c. 144. In appreciating the effects of liquids upon the human body, there are several circumstances independent of the quality of the fluid which deserve some notice ; such as temperature, volume, and the period of potation. Although fluids of the usual temperature of the air are grateful and congenial to a healthy stomach, persons disposed to dyspepsia frequently require them to be raised to the tempe- rature of the body; for the stomach, not having * Redi (Osservaz. intorno agli Anim. viventi, 8fc. No. 34) instituted a series of experiments, with the sole view of ascer- taining how long animals can live without food. Of a number of capons which he kept without either solid or liquid aliment, not one survived the ninth day; but one to which he allowed water drank it with avidity, and did not perish until the twentieth day. See our work on Medical Jurisprudence, Art. Death by Starvation, vol. ii. p. 67.