Health and disease : as influenced by the daily, seasonal, and other cyclical changes in the human system / by Edward Smith.

  • Edward Smith
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health and disease : as influenced by the daily, seasonal, and other cyclical changes in the human system / by Edward Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    males to be respectively 10 and 5 pulsations, or a total of 15 pulsations per minute, and the true effect of change of posture in the male is more than twice as great .as in the female. This result of posture is not due to muscular exertion employed in effecting the change. Dr. Guy also fully investigated the propor- tion of the rate of respiration to that of pulsation. 11. These varied and numerous inquiries have afforded much information, but were deficient in that they did not in any case embrace the whole cycle of the twenty-four hours, and were not made under con- ditions so precisely parallel that they could be ad- vantageously compared with each other, and hence it was desirable to make such a new series of observations as by their duration, the number of persons under ob- servation, the uniformity in the conditions of the inquiry, and the extreme regularity in the period and mode of making the observations, should afford complete cycles and conditions which should render the results entitled to credit. To this end two sets of inquiries were set on foot, one in reference to health,1 and the other in cases of phthisis2, the former embracing hourly ob- servations on five persons, including children, and extending over three days and nights ; and the latter on six adults of both sexes, extending over six clays and nights without intermission. The general con- ditions imposed were, precision in the hours of meals and of rising and retiring to rest, absolute rest during 1 Med. CM. Trans., 1856. 2 The same.
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