A treatise on the stomach and its trials / by J.C. Eno.

  • Eno, J. C.
Date:
[1870?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the stomach and its trials / by J.C. Eno. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    45/82 (page 43)
    boatmen, who say, on landing one of these unfortunates on the island, Let vais mats hum Inglez a lararyeira,—There goes another Englishman to the Orange Tree (or Protestant burial-ground). In the island it¬ self, it appears that whole families are occasionally swept away by pul¬ monary consumption.’ After all these experiences, multitudes are hurried annually abroad every year, and many of them in the last stage of consumption, desert¬ ing the comforts of home and country in the fruitless pursuit of a shadow. Should the suffering pilgrim escape a foreign grave, he has to retrace his long weary way, without one ray of hope, but with the image of death staring him full in the face. It is absurd., it is cruel, thus to send the suffering patient from his sympathising kindred and friends to die in a foreign land. Decay loses half its misery when it is within hearing of well-known voices, when it is surrounded by familiar faces, and among scenes that the poor invalid has known from infancy. For myself, I am altogether against the patient leaving home (England). At the best it is unnecessary. If consumption originates in poverty and impurity of the blood, as I maintain and prove, then every object can be gained in our own country; for it is not change of climate that is needed so much as change in diet—a letter digestion is the remedy. And, in support of this statement, I quote W. B. Car¬ penter, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., and Professor in University College: 1 The treatment must be directed to the invigoration of the system by good food, moderate and careful exercise, pure air, warm clothing, and cheerful occupations; and by the due employment of those means at a sufficiently early period many valuable lives may be saved, which would otherwise fall a sacrifice to tubercular disease in the lungs, or other im¬ portant organs. 1 Much reason has lately presented itself for the belief, that a de¬ ficiency of appropriate oleaginous constituents in the food exerts a direct influence in the production of the tubercular diathesis. This would appear to be indicated by the very marked benefit which has been de¬ rived, in the treatment of pulmonary consumption, and other tubercular diseases, from the use of Cod-Liver Oil, or of other easily-assimilated fish oils.’ A moderately warm and dry atmosphere is, doubtless, conducive to recovery in cases of consumption. That the climatic condition, however, is of secondary importance, is powerfully illustrated by the fact, that in Madeira, a warm climate, whole families are swept away by consumption, while in Iceland, well known to be an extremely cold country, and the general habits of the inhabitants of which would seem to favour the pro¬ duction of the disease, hut where the food of the people consists, in a very large measure, of oil, consumption is almost unknown.