On the curative effects of baths and waters : being a handbook to the spas of Europe / Including a chapter on the treatment of phthisis by baths and climate, by Rohden. An abridged translation, with notes, ed. by Hermann Weber.
- Julius (Arzt) Braun
- Date:
- 1875
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the curative effects of baths and waters : being a handbook to the spas of Europe / Including a chapter on the treatment of phthisis by baths and climate, by Rohden. An abridged translation, with notes, ed. by Hermann Weber. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
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![absolute effects of meteorological influences, leaving out physical of consideration the compensatory arrangements of the forces- organisation, and still less those compensations which exist among the physical forces themselves. Such a physical compensation, is, for example, taken into ac- count by Ludwig, and many favourite theories are thus deprived of all foundation. The loss of moisture from the lungs, Ludwig argues, is all the greater, the smaller the absolute amount of water in the atmosphere, and, therefore, in the winter and on high mountains. In perspiration, however, it is all the greater, the lower the degree of relative moisture, at noonday and in the height of summer. The rates of evaporation from the skin and lungs are therefore opposed as to time; the state of the barometer, moreover, in itself exercises an influence on evaporation; when it is low, the formation of vapour is accelerated. Taking all this together, the rapidity in the formation of vapour is increased on high mountains on account of the lower pressure of the air, and lessened on account of the greater relative moisture prevailing there ; so that the result of these combined circumstances may possibly be similar to the condition of things in the plains, where the relative amount of vapour is less, and the pressure of the barometer is greater. [Without wishing to form a new hypothesis, we may here mention that, although the loss of moisture to the whole organism may not be greater in high than in low elevations, yet the acknowledged greater loss through the lungs may be accompanied by local effects on certain morbid conditions of the respiratory organs, as well by producing a more active circulation in the lungs in order to supply the required moisture, as also by favouring a kind of drying up of surfaces secreting a morbid amount of mucus and pus, and also of moist exudations within the tissue. Possibly the improvement in many cases of chronic catarrhal pneumonia may be promoted by this increased afflux of blood and increased loss of moisture.] A similar importance may be assigned to the varia- Variations tions between greater and lesser moisture. In plains, the in !e ° L ' moisture air is far less exposed to the variations of density and of the air.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21032579_0061.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
