On slight ailments, and on treating disease / by Lionel S. Beale.

  • Lionel Smith Beale
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On slight ailments, and on treating disease / by Lionel S. Beale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    200/410 (page 188)
    favourable change for the better that has often immediately followed a small dose of gray powder or calomel administered during the early period of the attack, if, at the same time, the heart's action has been kept up by giving ammonia or alcohol in small doses at short intervals. In the reduced action of the excreting apparatus the intestinal glands participate. Too little faecal matter is formed, and of the amount formed, as already explained, only a portion is expelled on account of the sluggish state of the nerves and muscles of the bowel. Moreover, in chronic ailments re-absorption of soluble matters from the large intestine proceeds, and the materials taken up add to the accumulation of excrementitious matters in the blood, the serum of which is in consequence often actually changed in colour as well as in composition. The general health suffers, the clear ruddy complexion of health disappears, and the patient becomes constantly sallow. The colour of the skin generally is more or less dusky, the capillary circulation through the tissues will be miserably sluggish, and the intellect dull. There is an indisposition to exertion of every kind, and the nervous and muscular systems do not act or respond to stimuli as vigorously and as quickly as they used to do. People suffering thus may go on with their work, and as a fact numbers do so—but their work is performed, as it were, against the grain, and as though the workers were heavily weighted. If, now, for a time the conditions under which existence is carried on be modified, it is wonderful how soon and how great a change will take place. Perhaps for the first few days, even in the best of climates and amid the most beautiful scenery, the interest will not be excited or the despondency shaken off. Sleep may not be sound and the patient on rising in the morning does not feel refreshed. The muscles of many parts of the body ache ; some, and particularly those in the front of the leg, may feel sore, and after much walking become actually painful. The patient is conscious of a certain stiffness in his movements, and generally the elasticity both of mind and body seems to be for the time impaired. But, before long, a change takes place. The appetite improves and the sensation of hunger returns. Towards evening a tired feeling is experienced and is soon succeeded by a desire for rest. Many hours of sound refreshing sleep succeed and the patient gets up a different man. His spirits rise, he is seized with a desire to see, to do, to walk. He is thoroughly interested in things about him. The mental and bodily lassitude no longer troubles him. The complexion becomes ruddy, the skin smooth, and moist, and healthy. The bowels begin to act freely and in three or four days the excretory glands sepa- rate from the blood, and the excretory channels discharge in twenty- four hours more than had been previously removed in a week. In this way the blood is soon depurated and changed for the better, and I have