An essay on the wear and tear of human life : and the real remedy for this complaint / by G.T. Hayden.

  • Hayden, G. T. (George Thomas), 1798-1857.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the wear and tear of human life : and the real remedy for this complaint / by G.T. Hayden. 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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    sition in the last instance is, however, double,—physical and mental. We before alluded to a case in which a lady, that had previously suffered from fever, was seized with a second attack of this disease, from merely seeing the fever- cart pass by, and at such a distance and tmder such cir- cumstances, as completely precluded the idea that the malady had been caused by absorption. - A damp and cold atmosphere proves a decided excitant —hence, foggy days and night air prove so insalubrious ; acting in two ways, indirectly, by their depressing influ- ence, and, directly, by the stimulus which such an atmos- pheric condition is well knoAvn to produce. This will be still more aggravated should the damp air be tainted Avith miasmata — the foul exhalations emitted from vegetable and animal matter during decomposition—which occur in fenny, marshy countries, and in crowded, filthy, ill-ven- tilated, and densely populated city districts.* Fumigation excites the absorbents. It proves a speedy mode of introducing substances into the system—the mi- nute division of the matter, and the extent of surface to Avhich it can be thus applied, readily explain the eflTect so produced. The injurious influence caused by arsenic and mercury, Avhen these metals are in a state of sublimation, is but too well knoAvn to artists—this fact is attributable to the activity of the lining membrane of the lungs, as an absorbing surface. * My esteemed friend, Dr. Meyler, in his admirable work on Ventilation, ob- serves (page 112) ; “ Though the sources of most of these contagions have been covered by an impenetrable veil, the human body may truly be considered as the hot-bed in which these monstrous compositions are multiplied, fructified, and (Mused.” Again, (foot note,) he adds: “ It seems to be a general law of animal nature, at least among the mammalia, that the accumulation and stagnation of the exhalations of the living body produce disease. The glanderg of horses arise only in large stables, and the distemper of dogs in kennels. During the American war, live sheep were sent across the Atlantic. In a few weeks, in consc(][uence of being crowded in a ship, they all died of a febrile disorder.”