Common sense, or, the Abernethian code of health and longevity : founded on the principles and practice of John Abernethy.

Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Common sense, or, the Abernethian code of health and longevity : founded on the principles and practice of John Abernethy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    tbe original seat of the disease ; and likewise the complication of symptoms which mark this primary foundation and source ot aliment. One of the first marks of vitiated digestion, is lowness of spirits, or a peculiar languor and lassitude that sickens at exertion, and proves any thing but what are termed good spirits, followed by want of rest, or disordered sleep, and the person awakes in the morning with a sense of weariness and fatigue, instead of being refreshed; likewise a loss of appetite, then ensues, and nature no longer employs her protecting monitor, in the sensation of hunger, when the organ is thus out of order, or in a torpid state. To these primary, or leading symptoms, may be added a dry hot skin, occasioning, by the retention of saline matter in the blood, an offensive breath ; the tongue also is foul, and in the morning appears covered with a crust, conveying to the person's own sense, a bad and disagreeable taste: with these symptom? are joined, also, a heavy, dull countenance, a sallow look, and sympathetic pain of the head. Symptoms of a Faulti/ State of the Bowels,, When the bowels partake of this faulty state, the alvine discharge begins to deviate from the healthy appearance: it sometimes contains uncombined bile, sometimes it chiefly consists of bile; its colour at other times is too light, more frequently too dark; and occasionally, at length, almost black j at different times it assumes various hues, sometimes inclining to green, sometimes to blue, and sometimes it is mixed with, and now and then almost wholly consists of, undigested bits of food. When there is much straining, it often contains mucus in distinct masses, and not unfrequently substances resembling bits of membrane. It frequently separates from the canal with more difl5culty than usual, and leaves'^** feeling of the bowels not having been completely emptied: and likewise in derangement of the diges- tive process, this matter varies in colour from perfectly white to black—the former proclaiming a deficiency of bile, and the latter a fault in the liver and large intestines. In this state, there prevails flatulence, irructation, and extrication of gaseous matter, which is never known in health j and hence arise various uneasy symptoms in the stomach and alimentary tube. The urine also deviates from the healthy state. In its most healthy state, it is perfectly transparent when passed, and remains so after it cools, its colour beisg more or ^ less deep in proportion to the degree in which its contents are diluted. It is, however, liable to some deviations from this state under circum- stances which can hardly be said to aflect the general health.* • How often hath weakness, spasms, pains and aches, stitches, depravations and deprivations of sense and motion, and uneasy feel-