An address on longevity and the means of attaining it : delivered at the opening meeting of the Manchester Medical Society, October 3, 1906 / by Sir Lauder Brunton.

  • Brunton, Thomas Lauder, Sir, 1844-1916.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An address on longevity and the means of attaining it : delivered at the opening meeting of the Manchester Medical Society, October 3, 1906 / by Sir Lauder Brunton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    r 4 erysipelas is still a very common cause of death among the aged, and this disease also ought to be disminished greatly by proper antiseptic measures. Eespiratory diseases, bronchitis and pneumonia, carry off a great number of aged people. Both of these are usually ascribed to the effect of cold, but it should be borne in mind that while both are consequent upon exposure to cold, yet in both pathological organisms play a great part. Although Pasteur’s experiment with fowls is so well known that it may seem useless to repeat it, yet it is of such funda- mental importance that I venture to remind you that the French savant discovered that fowls, the natural temperature of whose body is nearly 104° F., are immune from anthrax, but if they are made to stand with their feet in cold water until their temperature is sufficiently lowered they then become susceptible to the disease. In the same way many apparently healthy people carry about in their pharynx the germs of pneumonia but do not take the disease until their vitality is lowered by exposure to chill. Two factors are required to give rise to the disease—the lowered vitality of the patient and the infection from without, and neither will produce the disease without the presence of the other. To discuss fully the subject of infection from without would involve a consideration of infection generally. Time will not permit of this, but in regard to this subject it may be well to consider that many so-called common colds are very infectious and are readily transmitted from one person to anothfer. One of the most violent attacks of bronchitis which I ever had originated very markedly in a local affection. I was travelling in the corner seat one day in a very dusty railway carriage. Some of the dust from the window appeared to get into the nostril nearest to it, causing me to sneeze. This sneezing fit developed into a one-sided cold in my head, the other nostril remaining quite free for more than a day. The catarrh then seemed to creep round the posterior nares and affect the other nostril. It then passed down into the trachea and finally into the bronchi. For many years I have been very firmly con- vinced that colds are very infectious and on one occasion I was going to call upon a friend of mine, a very old lady, who was