Domestic medicine. Or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases, by regimen and simple medicines : With an appendix containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitioners. To which is now first added the following new treatises: sea-bathing, etc / By J. Baker.

  • William Buchan
Date:
1809
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Domestic medicine. Or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases, by regimen and simple medicines : With an appendix containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitioners. To which is now first added the following new treatises: sea-bathing, etc / By J. Baker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    187/748 (page 159)
    r C *59 ] CHAP. XVIII. OF CONSUMPTIONS. AConfumption is a wafting of the whole* boclr, from an ulcer, tubercles, or concretion of the lungs, an empyema, a nervous atrophy, br cachex}^ Dr. Arbethnot obferves, that in his time confump- tions made up above one tenth part of the bills of mor- tality in and about London. There is reafon to believe they have rather incrcafed ftuce ; and we know from experience, thgt they are not lefs fatal in fome other towns of England than in London. Young perfons, between the age of fifteen and thirty, of a flendcr make, long neck, high fhoulders, and ftaS: breafts, are moft liable to this difeafe. Confumptlons prevail more in England than in any other part of the world, owing perhaps to the great life of animal food and malt liquors, the general appli- cation to fedentary employments, and the great quanti- ty of pit coal which is there burnt ; to which we may add, the perpetual changes in tire atmofphere, or va- riabienefs of the weather. ^ CAUSES. It has already) been obferved, that an mflammation of the breaft often ends in an iinpoft-, hume; confrqncntly whatever, difpofes people to this difeafe, mufl likewife be conftdered a,s a caufe of con-t fumption. . '4;r Other difeafes, by vitiating the habit, may llkcwifa occafion confumptions ; as the feurvy, the fcrophula, or king’s evil, tlie venereal difeafe, the afthma, fmall pox, meafles. See. As this difeafe is feldom cured, we ftiall endeavour the more particularly to point out its caufes, in order that people may be enabled lo avoid it. Thcie are : ^ Confined or unwholefome air; when this fluid is impregnated with the fumes of metals or minerals, it proves extremely hurtful to the lungs, and often cor- rodes the tender veffds of J:hat neceffary organ.