Copy 1, Volume 1

The study of medicine. Improved from the author's manuscripts, and by reference to the latest advances in physiology, pathology, and practice / [John Mason Good].

  • Good, John Mason, 1764-1827
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The study of medicine. Improved from the author's manuscripts, and by reference to the latest advances in physiology, pathology, and practice / [John Mason Good]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    largely than in plants. [This doctrine, however, must be incorrect, if spiders can live on sulphate of zinc*, and the Otomacs eat little else some months in the year, than large quantities of earth. A sudden change from a diet of fully azotized substances, like meat, bread, &c., to one composed of vegetables containing little or no azote, certainly cannot always be borne by the human constitution with impunity. This was proved in the eastern part of France, in the year 1817, where the failure of the crops produced such a famine, that the poor were compelled to- contend, as it were, with the beasts of the field for whatever vegetable productions could be found. The consequences were general anasarca, interruption of the menses, a diminution of the ordinary number of conceptions by one half, as carefully estimated by parochial documents, and permanent injury of the health. Even the sudden return to the use of barley bread, after the continuance of this miserable regimen for three months, was found not to be unattended with peril.+] It has often been a question, whether the abundance of azote in animals is derived from the atmosphere, by respiration or absorp- tion, or by both these processes ; or whether it is produced by the action of life itself; or obtained from articles of food. The experiments of M. Magendie favour the supposition, that the great source of azote in the animal body is the food; for, on feeding animals of various kinds on substances that contain no sensible portion of azote, as sugar, gum, olive-oil, and butter, together with distilled water, and confining them to this kind of diet, they gradually fell into a state of atrophy; and died. The secretions assumed the character of those of herbivorous animals, the food was digested, but, the muscles were reduced to one sixth of their proper volume. It is singular, that all the animals before death exhibited an ulcer of the cornea, which sometimes spread through the membrane, and let out the humours of the eye. [Haller observes that certain animals are destroyed by the use of sugar, although nutritious and salutary to others. In Stark’s experiments, we have many examples of the indigestible nature of a diet composed of a single article, which was easily digested when mixed with other substances. In order to render M. Magendie’s experiments unexceptionable, Dr. Bostockt{ thinks, that a diet should have been tried, composed of a mixture of sub- stances destitute of nitrogen. In fact, M. Magendie himself admits, that the question is not yet settled, whether life can be long supported by the sole use of any one species of aliment, however nutritive.§ At the same time, it deserves particular notice that, in 1750, a caravan of above one thousand Abyssinians, in consequence of having consumed all their provisions, are alleged to have subsisted for two months entirely on gum-arabic, which happened to be amongst their merchandise. || If this be true, it proves, that man can live on a single substance, which was found by Magendie to be insufficient nourishment even for dogs. | * Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy, vol. xii. p. 494. + Gaspard, in Magendie’s Journ., t.i. p. 237, &c. ¢ Elem. Syst. of Physiology, vol. ii. p. 467. § See Physiology, transl. by Milligan, p. 222. 2d edit. || Hasselquist, Voyages, &c. in the Levant, p. 298. B 3 Insuffici- ency of a diet con- sisting of only one article.