Institutes of health : essays on constitutional peculiarities, sudden impressions, bathing, animal food, London porter and ale, digestion, dropsy and liver complaints / by John Roberton.

  • Roberton, John, 1776-1820/21.
Date:
1817
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Institutes of health : essays on constitutional peculiarities, sudden impressions, bathing, animal food, London porter and ale, digestion, dropsy and liver complaints / by John Roberton. 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.

    14/100 (page 14)
    Neither does this particular quality of matter exclusively belong to the living body ; all inanimate substances are similarly influenced, for we find that a sudden impression will destroy their texture, while the same, or even a much greater force, gra- dually applied, will be sustained without their or- ganization being in the least affected. The previous circumstances are applicable to particular parts of our physical structure, and we shall find that similar reasoning may be used in re- gard to the whole body. Thus, in suddenly changing our situation for one, in many respects different, the inconvenience, or even danger, is al- most exactly in proportion to the rapidity of our change. Rapid changes of climate are involved under this rule, because those who do so are af- fected in a manner somewhat analagous to that of plants suddenly removed to a foreign soil. Eu- ropeans in warm climates, especially those who take little care of themselves, in their new and un- accustomed situation, but suddenly adopt intem- perate habits, arc particularly subject to the pre- vailing diseases of such climates. It is this also which preserves him from agues and intermittent fevers, who almost constantly works in the marshes and fens in our own island, while those who are occasional visitors to such places, or only casually exposed to their influence, are almost tiie certain victims of such complaints. From sudden and injudicious changes in living, while the health apparently remained sound, I have met with more irreparably broken constitutions, than from almost any other cause. From an idea