Observations on the casual and periodical influence of particular states of the atmosphere on human health and diseases, particularly insanity : with a table of reference to altitudes / by Thomas Forster.
- Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster
- Date:
- 1819
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations on the casual and periodical influence of particular states of the atmosphere on human health and diseases, particularly insanity : with a table of reference to altitudes / by Thomas Forster. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![downward at intervals, it may occasion an irregular distribution of it in our bodies, and produce an irregularity of function. In what- ever way the nervous functions may be disturbed, will a disordered action of the digestive organs be the probable consequence ; and a state of nervous and digestive disorder being once induced, other diseases may ensue, to which there may be a constitutional predisposition.1 It is not only the functions of the body which suffer from at- mospheric peculiarities ; the operations of the intellect, as they depend on the state of the brain, may suffer likewise from any cause which disturbs the animal system. In conformity to this notion, find we that the mind partakes of the irritability of the nervous system in general; and that in particular kinds of wea- ther, which affect the functions of the body, persons find them- selves incapable of the same clear and powerful exercise of the mental faculties as they enjoy at other times. It is well known that insane people are worse at particular times. The brain is the organ of animal life, as the other nerves are of that which is called automatic. It is a complicated assemblage of the organs of the different sentiments, propensities, and intellectual faculties ; and any one of these may have a morbid action, in proportion as its particular organ be disordered. And further, the organs of the brain are subject to disease similar to other parts of the body ;— to inflammation,—to morbid irritability,—to loss of tone,—to pa- ralytic affections. They suffer, also, in common with other parts, from atmospheric causes. Hence the weather can affect the mind through the medium of the brain. It would seem that there were a more immediate connexion be- tween the peculiar state of the air, and the kind of disorders which might be thereby excited, than what consists in the general disturbance of the nervous system and digestive organs, and the diseases which follow by sympathy, in consequence of a predispo- sition thereto. For it may be observed, that even of those dis- or ers which are not generally admitted to be contagious, one particular kind will prevail for a long time. Thus, in winter, the oitterent symptoms of that state of body which we call a bold, ap- pear, in some measure, to prevail and vary together; so that it is P n}0n ft0 ^ear people talking of the fashionable''complaint. thon^t]85 °' a w^e* are t^ie Prevailing symptoms ; 3ore throats are ‘ ,ce most. common. It is in spring that certain kinds of cu- eruptions usually appear ; arid in autumn, that those ir- his‘^SurciailObservn!),'eCt: haS !JeC weli-lllus,n,,cd by Mn. Anr.RNr.rnY, in Local Diseases ^ °n the Constitutional Origin and Treatment ot- to become ittqifaiiitcd with1B09 ~A WOrk w U.ch every mwlical person ought VOL. XIV. Pam. NO. XXVII. II](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22443666_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
