Selections from essays on health-culture and the sanitary woollen system / by Gustav Jaeger.

Gustav Jäger

Date:: 1886

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selections from essays on health-culture and the sanitary woollen system / by Gustav Jaeger. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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though it bring no peril with it in particular casesj the efficacy of the Banting eure is indefinitely in- ferior to the agency of an active skin in the restora- tion of a healthy condition to mind and body. An inordinate increase of the percentage of water is not so apparent as the deposit of fatty matter—if the two morbid conditions do not manifest them- selves concurrently, which is mostly the case—but it makes itself distinctly feit ; the flesh is flabby, like dough, whereas under normal conditions it should be perfectly elastic and firm. Accumulation of water in the System directly tends to increase the percentage of water in the blood, which means poor- ness of blood, and a consequent lowering of the powers in all parts of the body ; for their nutrition is lessened, and the water in them increases, crip- pling the vital forces, or, in other words, diminish- ing the normal activity of nerve and inuscle, and eventually suspending it altogether. This is shown on the one hand by the phenomena attendant on dropsy proper, and on the other I liad evidence of it in an experiment tried upon myself and a few thoroughly healthy subjects, among whorn were two of our local medical men. In this experi- ment I endeavoured to determine by figures how far the loss of water in the tissues, caused by the action of a Turkish bath, would affect the speed of nerve transmission, not only in the sensory and motor nerves, but also in the cranial nerves. The experiment was conducted in the following manner :— For investigations of this kind a stop-watch is used, the index-hand of which, by simple pressure exerted upon two separate knobs, can either be brought to a

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