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.

    57/220 (page 45)
    livor, and this sect are the most nmncroiis; a third, tho kidneys ; a fourth, the limgs ; and so on. This is tho great error of tho irge, combined with the accompanying hallucina- tions in treatment. That specific diseases exist there can be no doubt, palpable as Macbeth’s dagger. They come before us ndthout any mistake in tlieir identity; tho result of neglect in the patient on tho one hand, or produced by medical errors on tho other. Primary disorders in tho system are either checked or aggravated by a variety of means. It cannot be supposed that Nature herself is indif- fei'ent or careless in tlie matter, for she always strives for health and life, and null keep them both as long as she can, the latter even in the highest state of disease. To do this she often seems to act unwisely, but this she never does, for all her acts are under, and in obedience to, given laws. As no inflammatory actions can take place, either locally or generally, vdthout the previous stages of congestive ones being more or less unbearable, Natui'c will make one organ tho scapegoat of the rest by a specific inflammation ; or she will involve tho whole in the great melee, and produce an inflam- matory fever. The former is tho milder way of bringing all tho congested organs to the help of the one inflamed. Tho latter is on attack on all of them at once; for by a sudden chemico-vital action she caiTies oft’ not only all tho excess of acid elements from the system, but even the predominance necessary for tho health of it; tho result being arterial fever. Disease then becomes removed from tho venous circulation ; it is no longer acid or congestive, requiring alkaline elements for its reduction, but is in an engorged or alkaline state, requiring acid remedies. In local or specific parts a bronchial congestion will Ixs suddenly converted into a bron- chitis-diseases opposite as tho poles. In tlio general state, instead of measles, wo have scarlet-fever; instead of con- gestive, we have inflammatory fever; instead of congestion of mucous membi-anes of tho alimentary canal, wo liavo inflam- mation of them ; instead of congestive, wo have inflammatory cholera; in fact, everything is changed, both t)f these dis- tinctive conditions retpiiring equally distinctive remedies. If tliey do not get them, but rather if tho I’cmedies are reversed, tho patient dies. If by lucky chance ho lives, mid retiums to that state such as I have described as being health,