Principles of human physiology / by William B. Carpenter.

  • William Benjamin Carpenter
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Principles of human physiology / by William B. Carpenter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    diarrhoea, or accumulating in the crop. It seems as if the vital powers were not sufficient to furnish the requisite supply of gastric fluid, when the body began to be enfeebled by insufficient nutrition; or perhaps we might well say, the materials of the gastric fluid were wanting. Hence the loathing of food, which is often manifested by those who have been subjected to the influence of an insufficient diet scale in our prisons and poor-houses, and which has been set down to caprice or obstinacy, and punished accordingly, may be actually a proof of the de- ficiency of the supply which we might expect to have been voraciously devoured, if really less than the wants of the system- require. 80. It is extremely important that the Medical Practitioner should be aware, that many of the phenomena above described may be induced by the adoption of a system of too rigid abstinence in the treatment of various diseases; and that they have been frequently confounded with the symptoms of the malady itself, and have led to an entirely erroneous method of treating it. Many cases, says Dr. Copland,* have oc-j curred to me in practice, where the antiphlogistic regimen, which had been too rigidly pursued, was itself the cause of the very symptoms I which it was employed to remove. Of these symptoms, the affection of the head and delirium are the most remarkable, and the most readily mistaken for an actual disease requiring abstinence for its removal. The experience of those, especially, who are largely engaged in consult- ing practice, must have furnished numerous illustrations of the above statement. Dr. Copland mentions the following:—A professional man had been seized with fever, for which a too rigid abstinence was I enforced, not only during its continuance, but also during convalescence.] Delirium had been present at the height of the fever, and recurredl when the patient was convalescent. A physician of eminence in ma-| niacal cases was called to him, and recommended that he should be re^l moved to a private asylum. Before this was carried into effect, I w&l requested to see him. A different treatment and regimen, with a graduall increase of nourishment, were adopted, and he was well in a few days,! and within a fortnight returned to his professional avocations. 81. The time during which life can be supported under entire absti-| nence from food or drink, is usually stated to vary from eight to ten! days the period may be greatly prolonged, however, by the occa-l sional use of water, and still more by a very small supply of food: orJ even, it would seem, by a moist condition of the surrounding atmo-l sphere, which obstructs the exhalation of liquid from the body. Thus* Foder6 mentions that some workmen were extricated alive, after four-I teen days' confinement in a cold damp vault, in which they had beeni buried under a ruin. Dr. Sloan has given an accountj of the case of aj healthy man ast. 65, who was found alive after having been shut up u a coal-mine for twenty-three days, during the first ten of which he wa able to procure and swallow a small quantity of foul water; he was n * Dictionary of Practical Medicine, vol. i. p. 26. + There seems adequate evidence, that a state which may be characterized as on of Syncope,—the animal functions being entirely suspended, and the organic function being reduced to an extremely low ebb,—may be prolonged for many days, or eve weeks, provided the temperature of the body be not too much reduced. This class o facts however, will be more appropriately considered hereafter (chap. xxi.). X 'Medical'Gazette, vol. xvii. p. 389.