Ourselves, our food, and our physic / by Benjamin Ridge.

  • Ridge, Benjamin
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ourselves, our food, and our physic / by Benjamin Ridge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    103/220 (page 91)
    CAUSES or CONSUMPTION. mercurials are equally sufferers ; and I can Lardly define the difference Letween the debauched, who arc always stimu- lating their vile secretions, and inducing too glandulai’ an activity, from those who do the same by mercurials. In- surance ofiices ask two important questions of all applicants for life insiu-ance; “ whether they ai’c temperate or other- wise ■?” and, “ if any of their family have had consumption ?” Were they to put the third question, “have you or your parents ever been salivated, or addicted to the use of mcr- cm-ials ?” they would do themselves and the public a gi’cat service; for depend on it, tlie congestive consmnptions occtur- ring after thirty-five years of ago have their greater origin from both these classes. While, therefore, hereditary con- siunption produces the more numerous young cases, the mercurialists and hai’d-drinkcrs produce these later in life. No people take so much merem-y and calomel as the English ; none yield statistically a greater amoimt of congestive con- sumption. Poverty, which means not only want of the necessaries of life, but the luesenco of everything that induces disease, breeds consumption largely. The poor ai*o not worse off in England than in other countries; they arc probably better cared for, therefore they do not supply the greater average of this disease as against the poor of other countries; neither do the effects of various trades on the artisan more than in other countries. In these, as well as in our own, intemperance in the lower classes is a gi’cat cause ; Imt if wo equalize all these, still England prodiices the greatest average of consumptive cases. Cases that would rapidly go into consumption from the result of the primary causfis of disease which I have abundantly spoken of, are j)revcnted by neutralizing morbid elements, and giving them free air and ventilation, and using the hygienic remedies fitted to such conditions. There is nothing that causes so great a disposition to consumption as the congestive tendency in glands. Many fi^milies have a thick phlegmy tendency; but so well bred are they, and so vulgar and hon-id is it thought to expectorate, that it is checked in the younger members as ijidelicatc. IIow’ often has this laid the foundation for consumption ! Any other excrementitious act may bo cncotiragcd; but free expectoration must forsooth bo checked. The disposition to