The domestic management of the sick-room : necessary, in aid of medical treatment, for the cure of diseases / by Anthomy Todd Thomson.

  • Thomson, Anthony Todd, 1778-1849.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The domestic management of the sick-room : necessary, in aid of medical treatment, for the cure of diseases / by Anthomy Todd Thomson. 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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    dry air is equally hurtful: a proper medium is requisite for the maintenance of health. Cold moist air is more injurious than cold dry air; hence night air is generally hurtful to all invalids. Warm moist air, within a certain limit, is favor- able to those liable to Pulmonary Consumption ; but, when the heat of the air is great, and accompanied with much moisture, Dysentery, Cholera, and fevers are generated, and the air may be said to be, in every respect, unhealthy. It is the variations in the temperature of the air, however, that are most hurtful in this climate. When the surface of the body is artificially heated, and suddenly exposed to cold air, both the skin and the respi- ratory organs become affeeted, and inflammatory action is induced. On the other hand, variations less obvious, and which can scarcely be detected by the closest investigation, exert morbid influences upon either the nervous or the vas- cular system, and set up epidemic diseases; such, for ex- ample, as Cholera, Dysentery, Scarlet Fever, and continued fevers of every type, from common catarrhal Influenza to Typhus, and even Plague. It is true that some fevers are the result of local causes, operating only through the me- dium of the air; as, for example, Ague, and Yellow-fever, and some well-marked endemic diseases:* but the prophy- lactic means to be adopted for shielding the body from the influence of such causes are nearly the same. In this island, where atmospheric changes of every de- scription are so frequent, and where a predisposition to consumption of the lungs so generally prevails,! the strict- est attention should be paid to the condition of the surface of the body. Means should be taken to preserve it, under every chancre in the weather and of season, in as equable a state both of temperature and of perspiration, as possible ; and nothing is better fitted for this purpose than wearing * Endemic diseases are those depending upon permanent physical causes pecufit certain localities; as, for example, Jgue, generated by exhala- U7^r^:^^ !» Great Britain are due to Consump- j- About oueniiu , fN R q rt. jour. Med. & Surg.) lion. tAccordVnr°tuD;-hv ^sumption in Philadelphia, is 1 in 7-003. the average of deaths °y ^su.npuon ^ %Q ^ ^^l^'^i.'^H'; nHea.th,PP.m)&c] 2*