The water-cure in chronic disease : an exposition of the causes, progress and terminations of various chronic diseases of the digestive organs ... and of their treatment by water, and other hygienic means / by James Manby Gully.

  • Gully, James Manby, 1808-1883.
Date:
[1847?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The water-cure in chronic disease : an exposition of the causes, progress and terminations of various chronic diseases of the digestive organs ... and of their treatment by water, and other hygienic means / by James Manby Gully. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of blood-vessels and ganglionic nerves, and are thereby kept in a state of close organic sympathy with the central portions of the organic nerves, and thence with the rest of the body, it might be expected that irritation of those organs would tend powerfully to cause and maintain chronic disorder; and constant experience shows such to be the case. Intellectual labour and moral anxiety, each or CO]]jointly, keep up the derangement of other parts : the latter, perhaps, doing it more intensely than the former. To “ Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Haze out the written troubles of the brain,” is an unavailing endeavour when the sjunpathies of the digestive organs have been involved; for these, in return, maintain the irritation of the brain, and the unlucky patient is the prey of two chronic mischiefs, which few can long withstand. Cause and effect become confused, and the practitioner is puzzled where to begin. It appears to me, that if the core of life in the chest and abdomen can be put into a condition so as more steadily to resist impres- sions from the brain, the latter receiving fewer irritations from that point, the mind will be thereby better enabled to struggle with its load and throw it off. In fact, unless the mental distress prey upon the digestive organs, it is certain not to last: the proverb, “ that a hard heart and good digestion go together,” is based in truth : he who Imows not suffering is the least likely to pity it in others, or be anxious for any one. Whilst, therefore, it is of course advisable to remove the moral 'cause as far as may be, it is, at least, quite as necessary to avoid additional irritation of the abdominal organs, the stomach, &c.; and, looking to this, we must observe the folly of giving stimulating diet and medicines to dissipate moral clouds ; they can only thicken the gloom of the mind in proportion as they com- plicate and inveterate the physical disorder. Wherever the mischief begin, therefore, I should, above all, have a care of the viscera and ganglions. Care, anxiety, and grief more especially, give rise to chronic nervous dyspe2')sia, diseased heart., pulmonary con- sumpAion, and dropsy, the rationale of which is sufficiently obvious from what has preceded. They also originate, by the medium of the stomach, certain forms of skin