Observations on the nature of malignant cholera, with a view to establish correct principles of its preventions and treatment : drawn up at the request of the Westminster Medical Society / by A. P. W. Philip.

  • Philip, Alexander Philip Wilson, 1770-1847.
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the nature of malignant cholera, with a view to establish correct principles of its preventions and treatment : drawn up at the request of the Westminster Medical Society / by A. P. W. Philip. 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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    desponding, are more than usually selected by it. We ought not, however, by such observations, to be betrayed into too free a use of invigorating means. When carried beyond the proper line, they become indirect causes of debility. The system cannot always be kept, even in the slightest degree, above the healthy tone. Hippocrates justly observes, in his third Aphorism, that the extreme of health is dangerous, a maxim, when fully understood, con- veying many important cautions. The most secure health is not to be obtained by any one set of means, but by a uniform attention to a great many, which taken individually, appear of little importance. I shall here present to the reader a review of (hern, taken from my Treatise on the Preservation of Health. For the healthy and the vigorous, it is only necessary to avoid excess and much irregularity in their habits; but there is no par- ticular of what 1 am about to say, that does not deserve the careful attention of those of a more delicate frame, and con- sequently a more sickly tendency, whether natural or ac- quired. The following observations relate only to the daily occurrences connected with our state of health, which are powerful only because they are of daily occurrence ; the first part, to diet; the second, to exercise and sleep. Meat, provided the skin and much fat be avoided, and stale bread, are both the most easy of digestion, and the most nutritious articles of diet, although to certain stomachs bread is oppressive. That, in general, is the lightest which is best risen and soonest becomes dry. Mutton is the light- est meat, and the oily and mucilaginous meats the least so. Fish is both more difficult of digestion, and less nutritious than the flesh of land animals. Unless there be some particular reason to forbid it, there is no objection to animal food twice in the day, but it should not be taken later than three o'clock. The stomach gene- rally requires about six hours to digest an ordinary nieal.