Epidemics : their origin and prevention / by J. Foster Palmer.

  • Palmer, J. Foster (James Foster)
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Epidemics : their origin and prevention / by J. Foster Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

    45/112 (page 33)
    this is by no means the case. It was only the neces- sary result of the greatly increased number of deaths from pneumonia, pleurisy, and diseases of the liver, kidneys, and nervous system. For as all men die sooner or later, an increase in the number of deaths from any cause must necessarily diminish the number of those due to some other cause. Nor do the figures, as a whole, give a correct esti- mate of the proportionate loss of life. Alcohol causes ]4 per cent, of the total deaths, but we have no means of knowing how many lives have been saved by the legitimate use of stimulants, in supporting the system during acute illness, in warding off attacks of prevail- ing epidemics by temporarily sustaining the powers of resistance, and in prolonging feeble lives. These effects, of course, have been denied by some, and so has the existence of the first Napoleon ; but the rebut- ing evidence is not more convincing in one case than in the other. There are few who have had any experience ot medicine who have not seen the immediate effect of alcoholic stimulants in certain cases. A priori reason- ing cannot set at nought the experience of mankind and even if it is proved that alcohol is not, in the ordi- nary sense of the term, a food—i.e., does not supply any of the actua organic compounds existing in the tissues of the body—this does not show that it is an unnecessary article of diet. If it assists in the dio-es- tion and assimilation of food, or, if it prevents waste of tissue. It equally fulfils a certain part in nutrTtJon At the same time, there can be no doubt that when the system is m an exhausted and receptive condition owing to fatigue or msufficient diet, a judicious resort 0 stimulants will not unfrequently'succeed in supply which iTl 'iT-r'^' a degree of resisting pXIr which will enable it to tide over the period ?f exD0 sure to infection, and thus escape it altogether Sis IS why we occasionally hear of immunity ffom epidemic