TO ILLUSTRATE AND SUPPLEMENT THE TEXT.
Arranged in order of the subjects to which they refer.
"Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted,
nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh, and consider."
LORD BACON.
"He who learns the rules of wisdom without conforming to them in his life,
is like a man who labored in his fields but did not sow."
SAADI.
SELECTED READINGS.
The figures indicate the pages in the text upon which the corresponding
subjects will be found.
THE SKELETON.
MAN, AS COMPARED WITH OTHER VERTEBRATE ANIMALS (p. 3).—Man, the lord of
the animal kingdom, is constructed after the same type as the cat that
purrs at his feet, the ox that he eats, the horse that bears his burden,
the bird that sings in his cage, the snake that crawls across his pathway,
the toad that hides in his garden, and the fish that swims in his
aquarium. All these are but modifications of one creative thought, showing
how the Almighty Worker delights in repeating the same chord, with
infinite variations. There are marked physical peculiarities, however,
which distinguish man from the other mammals. Thus, the position of the
spinal opening in the middle third of the base of the skull, thereby
balancing the head and admitting an upright posture; the sigmoid S-curve
of the vertebral column; the ability of opposing the well-developed thumb
to the fingers; the shortened foot, the sole resting flat on the ground;
the size and position of the great toe; the length of the arms, reaching
halfway from the hip to the knees; the relatively great development of the
brain; the freedom of the anterior extremities from use in locomotion, and
the consequent erect and biped position. In addition, man is the only
mammal that truly walks; that is endowed with the power of speech; and
that is cosmopolitan, readily adapting himself to extremes of heat and
cold, and making his home in all parts of the globe.—STEELE'S Popular
Zoology.
FIG. 68.
[Illustration: Skeleton of Orang, Chimpanzee, and Man.]
UNION OF FRACTURES (p. 8).—In the course of a week after a fracture,
there is a soft yet firm substance, something between ligament and
cartilage in consistence, which surrounds the broken extremities of the
bone, and adheres to it above and below. The neighboring muscles and
tendons are closely attached to its surface, and the fractured extremities
of the bone lie, as it were, loose in a cavity in the center, with a small
quantity of vascular albumen, resembling a semitransparent jelly.
Here, then, is a kind of splint which nature contrives, and which is
nearly completed within a week from the date of the accident. We call this
new formation the callus. This process goes on, the surrounding
substance becoming thicker and of still firmer consistence. In the course
of a few days more, the thin jelly which lay in contact with the broken
ends of the bone has disappeared, and its place is supplied by a callus
continuous with that which formed the original capsule. This is the
termination of the first stage of curative progress. The broken ends of
the bones are now completely imbedded in a mass of vascular organized
substance or callus, something between gristle and cartilage in
consistence; and as yet there are no traces of bony matter in it. At this
time, if you remove the adventitious substance, you will find the broken
ends of bone retaining exactly their original figure and presenting the
same appearance as immediately after the fracture took place.
At the end of about three weeks, if you make a section of the callus,
minute specks of earthy matter are visible, deposited in it here and
there, and at the same time some of the callus, appears to disappear on
the outside, so that the neighboring muscles and tendons no longer adhere
to it. The specks of bone become larger and more numerous until they
extend into each other; and thus by degrees the whole of the callus is
converted into bone. Even at this period, however, there is not absolute
bony union, for although the whole of the callus has become bone, it is
not yet identified with the old bone, and you might still pick it off with
a penknife, leaving the broken extremities not materially altered from
what they were immediately after the injury. This may be regarded as the
end of the second stage of the process by which a fracture is repaired.
Now a third series of changes begins to take place. The broken extremities
of the bones become intimately united by bony matter passing from one to
the other. The mass of new bone on the outside, formed by the ossification
of the callus, being no longer wanted, is absorbed; by degrees the whole
of it disappears, and the bone is left having the same dimensions which it
had before the occurrence of the accident.
The process of union is completed in young persons sooner than in those
advanced in life; in the upper extremities sooner than in the lower; and
in smaller animals more speedily than in man. In human subjects a broken
arm or forearm will be healed in from six to eight weeks, while a leg or
thigh will occupy nine or ten weeks.—SIR B. C. BRODIE.
FIG. 69.
[Illustration: FIG. 69. a. Monkey's Hand and Foot. b. Human Hand
and Foot.]
THE HAND AND THE FOOT (p. 2l).—Man Compared with the Ape.—
The peculiar prehensible power possessed by the hand of man is chiefly
dependent upon the size and power of the thumb, which is more developed in
him than it is in the highest apes. The thumb of the human hand can be
brought into exact opposition to the extremities of all the fingers,
whether singly or in combination; while in those quadrumana which most
nearly approach man, the thumb is so short, and the fingers so much
elongated, that their tips can scarcely be brought into opposition; and
the thumb and the fingers are so weak that they can never be opposed to
each other with any degree of force. Hence, though well suited to cling
round bodies of a certain size, such as the small branches of trees, the
anterior extremities of the quadrumana can neither seize very minute
objects with such precision nor support large ones with such firmness as
are essential to the dexterous performance of a variety of operations for
which the hand of man is admirably adapted.
The human foot is, in proportion to the size of the whole body, larger,
broader, and stronger than that of any other mammal, save the kangaroo.
The surface of the astragalus (ankle bone) which articulates with the
tibia, looks almost vertically upward, and hardly at all inward, when the
sole is flat upon the ground; and the lateral facets are more nearly at
right angles to this surface than in any ape. The plane of the foot is
directed at right angles to that of the leg; and its sole is concave, so
that the weight of the body falls on the summit of an arch, of which the
os calcis (heel bone) and the metatarsal bones form the two points of
support. This arched form of the foot, and the contact of the whole
plantar surface with the ground, are particularly noticeable in man, most
of the apes having the os calcis small, straight, and more or less raised
from the ground, while they touch, when standing erect, with the outer
side only of the foot. The function of the hallux, or great toe,
moreover, is strikingly contrasted in man and the ape; for, while in the
latter it is nearly as opposable as the thumb, and can be used to almost
the same extent as an instrument of prehension, it chiefly serves in the
former to extend the basis of support, and to advance the body in
progression.—DR. W. B. CARPENTER.
FIG. 70.
[Illustration: The Leg in standing.]
The Natural Flexibility of the Toes, and How it is Destroyed.—We
often admire the suppleness of the fingers by means of which we can
perform such a variety of acts with swiftness and delicacy. Did it ever
occur to you that the toes, which in most feet seem incapable of a free
and graceful motion, even when they are not stiffened and absolutely
deformed by the compression of the modern shoe, are also provided by
Nature with a considerable degree of flexibility? The phalanges of the
toes, though more feebly developed, have really the same movements among
themselves as those of the fingers, and, in case of necessity, their
powers can be strengthened and educated to a surprising degree. There are
well-known instances of persons who, born without hands, or having lost
them by accident, have successfully supplied the deficiency by a
cultivated use of their feet. Some of these have distinguished themselves
in the world of art. Who that has been so fortunate as to visit the
Picture Gallery in Antwerp on some fine morning when the armless artist,
M. Felu, was working at his easel, can forget the wonderful dexterity with
which he wielded his brushes, mixed the oils on his palette, and shaded
the colors on his canvas, all with his agile feet? The writer well
remembers the ease and grace with which, at the close of a pleasant
interview, this cultured man put the tip of his foot into his coat pocket,
drew out a visiting card, wrote his name and address upon it, and
presented it to her between his toes!
Contrast this intelligent adaptation of a delicate physical mechanism with
the barbarous treatment it too commonly receives. The Chinese are at least
consistent. They cripple and distort the feet of their highborn daughters
until they crush out all the power and gracefulness of nature in the
artificial formation of what they term a "golden lily"; but they never
expect these golden-lilied women to make their withered feet useful. With
us, on the contrary, every girl would like to walk well, to display in her
general movements something of the "poetry of motion"; yet the absurd and
arbitrary fashion of our foot gear not only makes an elastic step one of
the rarest of accomplishments, but renders oftentimes the simple act of
walking a painful burden. The calluses, corns, bunions, ingrowing nails,
and repulsive deformities that are caused by and hidden under the narrow-
toed, high-heeled instruments of torture we often wear for fashion's sake
are uncomfortable suggestions that our practices are not greatly in
advance of those of our Celestial sisters. Dowie, a sensible Scotch
shoemaker, satirizes the shape of a fashionable boot as suited only to
"the foot of a goose with the great toe in the middle." The error which
may have led to the adoption of this conventional shape appears to lie in
a misconception of the natural formation of the foot, and of the relation
of the two feet to each other. It is true, that when the toes are covered
with their soft parts, the second toe appears a little longer than the
first, and this appearance, emphasized and exaggerated, is perhaps
responsible for a practical assumption that Nature intended an even-sided,
tapering foot. On the contrary, the natural foot gradually expands in
breadth from the instep to the toes and, in the skeleton itself, the great
toe is the longest.
"There is no law of beauty," says Dr. Ellis, "which makes it necessary to
reduce the foot to even-sided symmetry. An architect required to provide
more space on one than on the other side of a building would not seek to
conceal or even to minimize the difference; he would seek rather to
accentuate it, and give the two sides of the structure distinctive
features….Moreover, the sense of symmetry is, or ought to be, satisfied
by the exact correspondence of the two feet, which, taken jointly, may be
described as the two halves of an unequally expanded dome."—E. B. S.
THE MUSCLES.
ATTACHMENT OF THE MUSCLES TO THE BONES (p. 30).—One of the two bones to
which a muscle is attached is usually less mobile than the other, so that
when the muscle shortens, the latter is drawn down against the former. In
such a case, the point of attachment of the muscle to the less mobile bone
is called its origin, while the point to which it is fixed on the more
mobile bone is called its attachment….A muscle is not always extended
between two contiguous bones. Occasionally, passing over one bone it
attaches itself to the next. This is the case with several muscles which,
originating from the pelvic bone, pass across the upper thigh bone, and
attach themselves to the lower thigh bone. In such cases the muscle is
capable of two different movements: it can either stretch the knee,
previously bent, so that the upper and the lower thigh bones are in a
straight line; or it can raise the whole extended leg yet higher, and
bring it nearer to the pelvis. But the points of origin and of attachment
of muscles may exchange offices. When both legs stand firmly on the
ground, the above-mentioned muscles are unable to raise the thigh;
instead, on shortening, they draw down the pelvis, which now presents the
more mobile point, and thus bend forward the whole upper part of the body.
One important consequence of the attachment of the muscles to the bones is
the extension thus effected. If the limb of a dead body is placed in the
position which it ordinarily occupied during life, and if one end of a
muscle is then separated from its point of attachment, it draws itself
back, and becomes shorter. The same thing happens during life, as is
observable in the operation of cutting the tendons, as practiced by
surgeons to cure curvatures. The result being the same during life and
after death this phenomenon is evidently due to the action of elasticity.
It thus appears that the muscles are stretched by reason of their
attachment to the skeleton, and that, on account of their elasticity, they
are continually striving to shorten. Now, when several muscles are
attached to one bone in such a way that they pull in opposite directions,
the bone must assume a position in which the tension of all the muscles is
balanced, and all these tensions must combine to press together the
socketed parts with a certain force, thus evidently contributing to the
strength of the socket connection….This balanced position of all the
limbs, which thus depends on the elasticity of the muscles, may be
observed during sleep, for then all active muscular action ceases. It will
be observed that the limbs are then generally slightly bent, so that they
form very obtuse angles to each other.
Not all muscles are, however, extended between bones. The tendons of some
pass into soft structures, such as the muscles of the face. In this case,
also, the different muscles exercise a mutual power of extension, though
it is but slight, and they thus effect a definite balanced position of the
soft parts, as may be observed in the position of the mouth opening in the
face.—ROSENTHAL, Muscles and Nerves.
MUSCULAR FIBERS (p. 3l).—The anatomical composition of flesh is very
similar in every kind of creature, whether it be the muscle of the ox or
of the fly; that is to say, there are certain tubes which are filled with
minute parts or elements, and the adhesion of the tubes together makes up
the substance of the flesh. These tubes may be represented grossly by
imagining the finger of a glove, to be called the sarcolemma, or muscle-
fiber pouch, and this to be so small as not to be apparent to the naked
eye, but filled with nuclei and the juices peculiar to each animal.
Hundreds of such fingers attached together would represent a bundle of
muscular fibers. The tubes are of fine tissue, but are tolerably
permanent; whilst the contents are in direct communication with the
circulating blood and pursue an incessant course of chemical change and
physical renewal.—EDWARD SMITH, Foods.
FIG. 71.
[Illustration: Smooth Muscle Fibers (300 times enlarged).]
THE SMOOTH MUSCLE FIBERS consist of long, spindle-shaped cells, the ends
of which are frequently spirally twisted, and in the center of which
exists a long, rod-shaped kernel or nucleus. Unlike striated muscle, they
do not form separate muscular masses, but occur scattered, or arranged in
more or less dense layers or strata, in almost all organs. [Footnote: An
instance of a considerable accumulation of smooth, muscle fibers is
afforded by the muscle pouch of birds, which, with the exception of the
outer and inner skin coverings, consists solely of these fibers collected
in extensive layers.] Arranged in regular order, they very frequently form
widely extending membranes, especially in such tube-shaped structures as
the blood vessels, the intestine, etc., the walls of which are composed of
these smooth muscle fibers. In such cases they are usually arranged in two
layers, one of which consists of ring-shaped fibers surrounding the tube,
while the other consists of fibers arranged parallel to the tube. When,
therefore, these muscle fibers contract, they are able both to reduce the
circumference and to shorten the length of the walls of the tube in which
they occur. This is of great importance in the case of the smaller
arteries, in which the smooth muscle fibers, arranged in the form of a
ring, are able greatly to contract, or even entirely to close the vessels,
thus regulating the current of blood through the capillaries. In other
cases, as in the intestine, they serve to set the contents of the tubes in
motion. In the latter cases the contraction does not take place
simultaneously throughout the length of the tube; but, commencing at one
point, it continually propagates itself along fresh lengths of the tube,
so that the contents are slowly driven forward.
As a rule, such parts as are provided only with smooth muscle fibers are
not voluntarily movable, while striated muscle fibers are subject to the
will. The latter have, therefore, been also distinguished as voluntary,
the former as involuntary muscles. The heart, however, exhibits an
exception, for, though it is provided with striated muscle fibers, the
will has no direct influence upon it, its motions being exerted and
regulated independently of the will. Moreover, the muscle fibers of the
heart are peculiar in that they are destitute of sarcolemma, the naked
muscle fibers directly touching each other. This is so far interesting
that direct irritations, if applied to some point of the heart, are
transferred to all the other muscle fibers. In addition to this, the
muscle fibers of the heart are branched, but such branched fibers occur
also in other places; for example, in the tongue of the frog, where they
are branched like a tree. Smooth muscle fibers being, therefore, not
subject to the will, are caused to contract, either by local irritation,
such as the pressure of the matter contained within the tubes, or by the
nervous system. The contractions of striated muscle fibers are effected,
in the natural course of organic life, only by the influence of the
nerves.—ROSENTHAL.
OVEREXERTION AND PERSONAL IMPRUDENCE (p. 40).—Among children there is
little danger of overexertion. When a little child reaches the point of
healthy fatigue, he usually collapses into rest and sleep. But with youth
comes the spirit of ambition and emulation. A lad, for instance, is
determined to win a race, to throw his opponent in a football scramble, to
lift a heavier weight than his strength will warrant; or a girl is
stimulated by the passion she may possess for piano playing, painting,
dancing, or tennis. The moment of exhaustion comes, but the end is not
accomplished, and the will goads on the weary muscles, perhaps to one
supreme effort which terminates in a sharp and sudden illness, perhaps to
days and weeks of continued and incessant application, during which the
whole system is undermined. Thus is laid the foundation for a feeble and
suffering maturity.
To elderly people, overexertion has peculiar dangers, dependent largely
upon the changes which gradually take place in the tissues of the body.
The walls of the blood vessels become less and less elastic, and more and
more brittle, as life advances, until at last they are ready to give way
from any severe or unusual pressure. We constantly see old people
hastening their death by personal imprudence. An old gentleman running to
catch the morning train; an old farmer hastening to turn the strayed sheep
out of a cornfield; the old sportsman having a last run with the hounds;
the last pull at the oars; the last attempt of old age to play at vigorous
manhood.
A prominent American physician has said that between the ages of forty and
fifty every wise man will have ceased to run to "catch" trains or street
cars; and that between fifty and sixty he will have permanently discarded
haste of all kinds. Equal precautions should be observed by both young and
old, but especially by those advanced in life, in regard to extremes of
heat, cold, or storm. William Cullen Bryant, by exposing himself to a
scorching sun and refusing to permit a friend to protect him with an
umbrella while delivering an address in Central Park, received injuries to
his system that carried him to his grave. Ralph Waldo Emerson, by standing
in a chilling wind, contracted a cold and died. George Dawson, by going
thoughtlessly into a freezing atmosphere from the sweltering rooms of a
crowded reception, took cold which resulted in pneumonia and death.
Matthew Arnold, for years a sufferer from heart difficulty, in a single
instance neglected the advice of his physician not to indulge in any
violent exercise, made repeated attempts and finally succeeded in jumping
a fence, and in a few hours was a dead man. Roscoe Conkling braved the
most terrible blizzard ever known in the east and sacrificed his life. And
yet, these were all men of exceptional prudence. Probably no other five
persons in the world of like surroundings and vocations were more careful
of their health. In an unguarded moment their prudence left them, and they
paid the terrible penalty.—Compiled.
EFFECTS OF INSUFFICIENT OUTDOOR EXERCISE UPON THE YOUNG (p. 41).—Children
deprived of adequate outdoor exercise are always delicate, pale, and
tender; or, in a figurative sense, they are like the sprig of vegetation
in a dark, dank hole,—bleached and spindling….An inactive indoor life
is one of the most effectual ways of weakening the young body. It renders
the growth unnaturally soft and tender, and thus susceptible to harm from
the slightest causes. It hinders the garnering of strength necessary for a
long life, and gives to the germs of disease a resistless power over an
organization so weak and deficient….Measles, scarlet fever, and
diphtheria find among such a congenial soil, and run riot among the
elements of the body held together by so frail a thread….Such children
are always at the mercy of the weather. Colds and coughs are standard
disorders in winter, headaches and habitual languor in summer….The
scapegoat for this result is the climate: if that was only better, mothers
are sure their children's health would also be better. No, it would not be
better: no earthly climate is good enough to preserve health and strength
under such unnatural training….Children of the laboring classes, often
dirty and imperfectly clad, seldom have colds, simply for the reason that,
for the greater part of the day, they have the freedom of the streets. It
is not the dirt, it is not the rags, but the life-giving force of an
active outdoor life that renders such children so strong and healthy.
—BLACK, Ten Laws of Health.
POPULAR MODES OF OUTDOOR EXERCISE (p. 42).—Walking.—Every person
has his own particular step, caused by the conformity, shape, and length
of his bones, and the height of his body. Such a thing, then, as a
regulation step is unnatural, and any attempt at equalizing the step of
individuals of different heights must result in a loss of power.
The moment, also, that walking comes to be uphill, fatigue is
sensibly increased. The center of gravity of the body is changed, and the
muscular force necessary to provide for the change causes the fixing of
the diaphragm, and a rigid condition of many muscles. Respiration is
interfered with, owing to the fixing of the diaphragm, and the heart
becomes affected thereby. A person with a sensitive or diseased heart can,
during a walk, tell when the slightest rise in the ground occurs. We make
climbing more exhausting from the habit we have of suspending the breath.
Let the reader hold his breath and run up twenty-four steps of a
stair, and then perform the same act breathing freely and deeply.
It will be found that by the first act marked breathlessness will be
induced, whereas by the latter the effect is much less. This management of
the breath constitutes the difference between the beginner and the
experienced athlete. The enormous increase of the quantity of air consumed
during exercise will at once bring home a number of lessons. One is, that
exercise is best taken in the open air, and not in gymnasia; another, that
free play to act for the regions of the chest and abdomen must be given.
On no account must a tight belt be worn around the soft-walled abdomen. If
a belt is preferred to braces, let it be applied below the top of the
haunch bone, where the bones can resist the pressure.
Whatever may be the pastimes indulged in by young men, walking should
never be neglected. The oarsman will become "stale" unless the method of
exercise is varied; the gymnast will develop the upper part of his body,
while his lower extremities will remain spindleshanks. So with all other
forms of exercise; success, in any form of game, sport, or gymnastic
training, can not be attained unless walking be freely taken.
Skating is simply an exaggerated swinging walk, with this
difference, that the foot on which one rests is not stationary, but moves
along at a rapid rate. The benefit to the circulation, respiration, and
digestion is even greater in skating than in walking. The dangers from
skating are:
1. The giving way of the ice. Great caution should be used in regard to
the safety of a frozen pond or river.
2. Taking cold from becoming overheated, and from subsequent inactive
exposure. Physiological knowledge will teach people that, when they begin
to skate, outer wraps should be laid aside, and again put on when skating
is finished.
3. Sprains, especially of the ankle, and other minor accidents arising
from falls. Ankle boots with strong uppers should be worn during skating.
Those who have weak ankles ought to wear skates with ankle straps and
buckles, acme skates being relegated to those who are not afraid of going
"over their foot."
Rowing.—The muscles employed in rowing may be summed up under two
heads—those that are used in the forward swing, and those used in the
backward. In the forward swing all the joints of the lower
extremity, the hip, knee, and ankle, are flexed; the shoulder is brought
forward; the elbow is straightened; and the wrist is first extended and
then flexed, in feathering the oar. The body is bent forward by the
muscles in front of the abdomen and spinal column. In the backward
movement the reverse takes place; the lower extremity, the hip, knee, and
ankle are straightened; the shoulder is pulled back; the elbow is flexed;
and the wrist is held straight. The body is bent backward by the muscles
at the lower part of the back, and by those of the spine in general. It
will be seen that the enormous number of joints put into use, and the
varying positions employed, call into play nearly every muscle of the
limbs and trunk. Rowing gives more work to the muscles of the back than
any other kind of exercise. This is of the first importance to both men
and women, but especially to women. The chief work of the muscles of the
back is to support the body in the erect position, and the better they are
developed the better will the carriage be, and the less likelihood of
stooping shoulders, contracted chests, and the like. Now, the work of the
muscles in supporting the body is largely relegated in women to the stays,
and, in consequence, the muscles undergo wasting and fatty degeneration,
in fact, atrophy; so that when the stays are left off, the muscles are
unfit to support the body. Rowing exercises these muscles condemned to
waste, and imparts a natural carriage to the girl's frame. In rowing, as
in horseback riding, the clothing should be loose, stays left off, and
flannels worn next the skin. The dress itself should be of woolen, and
there should always be in the boat a large wrap to use when one stops
rowing. The following practical rules should be observed by rowers:
1. Never row after a full meal.
2. Stop when fatigue comes on.
3. Allow the breath to escape while the oar is in the water. A
novice usually holds his breath at each stroke, and pulls so rapidly that
in a few minutes he becomes breathless, and is forced to stop. Not only is
this uncomfortable, but it is dangerous. In the case of both young and
old, it may give rise to an abdominal rupture (hernia), dilation of the
cavities of the heart, rupture of a heart valve, varicose veins, etc.
Instead of fixing the diaphragm and holding the breath during the time of
pulling, as novices are apt to do, do exactly the opposite. Let the
diaphragm go loose, and allow the breath to escape.
4. Change the clothing from the skin outward as soon as the day's rowing
is finished.
5. Before retiring for the night, have a warm bath, temperature 92° Fahr.
This is a specific against the aches and muscular stiffness which often
follow a long pull on the water.
Swimming.—A word of warning is necessary in regard to those
learning to swim in rivers. Boys at school, when they take to river
bathing, often carry it to a dangerous extent. They get into the water,
and now in, now out on the bank, sometimes remain for hours. This may take
place day after day, and if the weather continues warm and the holidays
last long enough, the boy may reduce himself to the lowest ebb of
feebleness, and possibly develop the seeds of latent disease. He may even
die from the effects of this prolonged immersion and madcap exposure.
The muscular exertion undergone during swimming, especially by those who
swim only occasionally, is very great. The experienced swimmer conserves
his strength, as do proficients at all feats, but the occasional swimmer,
like the occasional rower, puts forth treble the energy required, and soon
becomes exhausted. In the first place, it is a new act for the muscles to
perform; they are taken off from the beaten tracks, and are grouped
together in new associations; hence they lack adjustment and adaptation.
Again, as in other feats for which one is untrained, the heart and lungs
do not work in time. Ease and speed in swimming depend upon the attainment
of harmony in the working of the muscles, heart, and lungs.
Diving is an accomplishment attached to swimming, which involves many
dangers, and is well-nigh useless. The customary dive off a springboard
into the shallow water of a swimming bath is dangerous in the extreme. The
only place where diving should be attempted is into deep water, at least
fifteen or twenty feet, where there is no danger of striking the bottom.
Lawn Tennis.—Of all modern inventions in the way of games, lawn
tennis is the best.
The dangers attendant on lawn tennis are:—
1. Overexertion, causing rupture and deranged circulation, especially in
the case of those with weak hearts, or those who, being out of condition,
or too fat, suddenly engage in the game too long or too violently.
2. Rupture of the tendon of Achilles, from taking a sudden bound.
In such an accident the subject falls down, with a sensation as if struck
with a club on the leg.
3. Rupture of one of the heads of the biceps in the arm. Here the arm
drops helplessly, and a muscular knob rises up on the inner and upper part
of the arm.
4. The tennis arm. This trouble arises from the method of manipulating the
bat. The pain is felt over the upper end of the radius.
Many of the strains, ruptured tendons, and torn muscles in tennis players
are caused by the want of heels to tennis shoes. As, ordinarily, we walk
on heels which vary from half an inch to an inch, there must be a
considerable extra strain thrown on the muscles of the calf of the leg,
when the heels are left off. Especially during a sudden spring is this
apparent, when to rise from off the heels on to the toes requires a
greatly increased force. Tennis shoes should therefore have fairly deep,
broad heels.
Horseback Riding is a mixed exercise, partly active and partly
passive, the lower parts of the body being in some measure employed, while
the upper parts in easy cantering are almost wholly relaxed. It is
peculiarly suited to dyspeptics, from its direct action upon the abdominal
viscera, the contents of which are stimulated by the continued agitation
and succussion, consequent on the motion in riding.
Bicycling and Tricycling.—While strongly recommending bicycling
and tricycling to both men and women in health, those suffering from heart
or lung affections, ruptures, scrofula, joint disease, or like maladies,
should not indulge in them without medical sanction. For abdominal
complaints, such as dyspepsia, congestion of the liver, constipation, and
the like, the exercise is excellent.
Baseball is an essentially American game, which brings into play
nearly all the muscles of the body. Its chief danger lies in being hit by
the hard, forcibly pitched ball, and, for weak persons, in the violence of
the exercise.
Football is a rough-and-tumble game, suited only to that class of
boys and men, who, brimming over with animal life, take small heed of the
accidents liable to occur.
Light and Heavy Gymnastics.—For wet weather, and when outdoor
exercise is not practicable, gymnastics are most advisable. Boys and
girls, at the age of fifteen or sixteen, often shoot up and become tall
and lanky; they want filling out, and are troubled with growing pains.
Even men, when tall and thin, are seldom very erect, their muscles are too
weak; and there is only one way of overcoming this weakness—by exercising
them. Nothing more is wanted than a pair of very light Indian clubs, a
pair of light wooden dumb bells, a long wooden rod, and a pair of wooden
rings,—the last for combined exercises. Indeed, a systematic motion of
the body itself, without any extra artificial resistance, is quite
sufficient for the purposes of physical education. In nearly all our large
cities are found gymnasia, provided with competent instructors, and every
facility for both light and heavy gymnastics. Exercise in a gymnasium is
open to the objection of being too brief and too severe, and of simply
causing an increase of muscular development. Besides, it is generally
unequal in its results, being better adapted to the cultivation of
strength in the upper extremities and portion of the body than in the
lower. Nevertheless, during inclement weather, or with persons in whom the
muscles of the arms and chest are defective, moderate gymnastic exercise
is far better than no exercise.—Compiled. (Mostly from "The
Influence of Exercise" in The Book of Health.)
THE SKIN.
THE HAIR (p. 52).—Baldness, and its Causes.—Various reasons are
assigned for the baldness which is so prevalent among comparatively young
men in our country. One writer says: "The premature baldness and grayness
of the Americans as a people is in great measure owing to the
nonobservance of hygienic rules, and to excess of mental and physical
labor in a climate foreign to the race." Others attribute it to the close
unventilated hats commonly worn by men. Dr. Nichols, in the Popular
Science News, gives his opinion thus:
"In our view, it is largely due to modern methods of treatment of the hair
and scalp. The erroneous idea prevails, that the skin which holds the hair
follicles and the delicate secretory organs of the scalp must be kept as
'clean,' so to speak, as the face or hands; consequently young men
patronize barbers or hairdressers, and once or twice a week they have what
is called a 'shampoo' operation performed. This consists in a thorough
scouring of the hair and scalp with dilute ammonia, water, and soap, so
that a heavy 'lather' is produced, and the glandular secretions, which are
the natural protection of the hair, and promotive of its growth, are
saponified and removed. No act could be more directly destructive of a
healthy growth of hair than this….Women do not shampoo or wash the hair
as often as the other sex, and consequently they are in a large degree
exempt from baldness in middle life. It is true, however, that many women
in cities make frequent visits to the hairdressers, and subject their
tresses to the 'scouring' process. If this becomes common, it will not be
long before baldness will overtake the young mothers as well as the
fathers, and the time will be hastened when even children will have no
hair to destroy with ammonia or other caustic cosmetics.
"The advice we have to offer to young men and maidens is,—let your hair
alone; keep at a safe distance from hair-dressing rooms and drug shops,
where are sold oils, alkaline substances, alcoholic mixtures, etc., for
use upon the hair. They are all pernicious, and will do you harm. The head
and hair may be washed occasionally with soft, tepid water, without soap
of any kind. As a rule, the only appliances needed in the care of the hair
are good combs and brushes: and they should not be used harshly, so as to
wound the scalp. Avoid all 'electric' and wire-made brushes. No
electricity can be stored in a hairbrush: if it could be, it is not
needed."
Sudden Blanching of the Hair from Violent Emotions.—The color of
the hair depends mainly upon the presence of pigment granules, which range
in tint from a light yellow to an intense black. A recent investigator has
succeeded in extracting the coloring matter of the hair, and has found
that all the different shades are produced by the mixture of three primary
colors—red, yellow, and black. "In the pure golden yellow hair there is
only the yellow pigment; in red hair the red pigment is mixed with more or
less yellow, producing the various shades of red and orange; in dark hair
the black is always mixed with yellow and red, but the latter are
overpowered by the black; and it seems that even the blackest hair, such
as that of the negro, contains as much red pigment as the very reddest
hair." Hence, "if in the negro the black pigment had not been developed,
the hair of all negroes would be a fiery red."—DR. C. H. LEONARD. The
Hair: Its Diseases and Treatment.
The gradual disappearance of this pigment causes the gray or white hair of
old age. This natural change in color does not necessarily denote loss of
vitality in the hair, as it often continues to grow as vigorously as
before it began to whiten. Cases of sudden blanching of the hair from
extreme grief or terror are often quoted,—those of Sir Thomas More and of
Marie Antoinette being well-known instances in point. An interesting
circumstance has been discovered with regard to such cases, namely, that
the change of color is not dependent upon the disappearance of the pigment
of the hair, which always takes place slowly, but upon the sudden
development in its interior of a number of air bubbles, that hide and
destroy the effect of the pigment, which itself remains unaltered. Dr.
Landois mentions the case of a German printer whom he attended, at a
hospital, in the summer of 1865.
This man had long been intemperate in his habits, in consequence of which
he was seized with delirium tremens. The delirium, as is usual in such
cases, was of an extremely terrifying nature, and lasted four days. On the
evening of the fourth day the hair was unaltered, but on the morning of
the fifth the delirium had disappeared, and his hair, which previously was
fair, had become gray. It was examined with the microscope, when it was
found that the pigment was still present, but that the central streak of
each was filled with air bubbles.
How this superabundance of air finds its way into the hair in these cases
of sudden blanching, physiologists have not yet been able satisfactorily
to explain.—In this connection, however, it may be observed that air
bubbles exist, more or less, in all hair, mingled with the pigment
granules.
The feathers of birds owe their bright colors to an oily secretion
corresponding to the pigment in hair, and microscopical observation has
revealed the fact that when these colors fade the oily secretion
disappears, and is replaced by air. That extreme terror may blanch
feathers as well as hair is shown in the case of a poor little starling,
which upon being rescued from the claws of a cat became suddenly white.
THE NAILS (p. 54).—The nails are mere modifications of the scarfskin,
their horny appearance and feeling being due to the fact that the scales
or plates of which they are composed are much harder and more closely
packed. The root of the nail lies embedded, to the extent of about the
twelfth part of an inch, in a fold of the sensitive skin, and, as may be
observed from an inspection of the part, the scarfskin is not exactly
continuous with the nail, but projects a little above it, forming a narrow
margin.
The nail, like the scarfskin, rests upon, and is intimately connected
with, a structure almost identical with the sensitive skin; this is,
however, thrown into ridges, which run parallel to one another, except at
the back part, where they radiate from the center of the root. On
examining the surface of the nail, a semicircular whitish portion is
detected near its root; its color is dependent upon the fact that the
ridges there contain fewer blood vessels, and therefore less blood, and on
account of its half-moon shape it is called the lunula.
The nail is constantly increasing in length, owing to the formation of new
cells at the root, which push it forward, while the increase in its
thickness is due to the secretion of new cells from the sensitive layer
beneath, so that the farther the nail grows from the root, the thicker it
becomes. Its nutrition, and consequently its growth, suffers in disease,
the portion growing during disease being thinner than that growing in
health; and accordingly a transverse groove is seen upon the nail,
corresponding to the time of an illness. It will thus be seen that by a
mere examination of the nail we can astonish our friends by telling them
when they have been ill; and it has been estimated that the nail of the
thumb grows from its root to its free extremity in five months, that of
the great toe in twenty months, so that a transverse groove in the middle
of the former indicates an illness about two and a half months before, and
in the middle of the latter, about ten months.
The culture of the nails, which when perfect constitute so great a beauty,
is of much importance; but the tendency is to injure them by too much
attention. The scissors should never be used except to pare the free edges
when they have become ragged or too long, and the folds of scarfskin which
overlap the roots should not, as a rule, be touched, unless they be
frayed, when the torn edges may be snipped off, so as to prevent their
being torn further, which may cause much pain, and even inflammation. The
upper surfaces of the nails should on no account be touched with the
knife, as is so often done, the nailbrush being amply sufficient to keep
them clean, without impairing their smooth and polished surfaces.—HINTON.
BATHS AND BATHING (p. 65).—Physical Cleanliness Promotes Moral
Purity.—The old adage that cleanliness is next to godliness, must
have had its origin in the feeling of moral elevation which generally
accompanies scrupulous bodily purity. Frequent bathing promotes purity of
mind and morals. The man who is accustomed to be physically clean shrinks
instinctively from contact with all uncleanliness. Personal neatness, when
grown into a habit, draws after it so many excellences, that it may well
be called a social virtue. Without it, refined intercourse would be
impossible; for its neglect not only indicates a want of proper self-
respect, but a disrespect of the feelings of others which argues a low
tone of the moral sense. All nations, as they advance in civilization and
refinement of manners, pay increased attention to the purity of the
person.
What, then, shall we say of people who, after all that has been said and
written upon the subject, seldom or never bathe, who allow the pores of
the skin to get blocked up with a combination of dust and perspired
matter, which is as effectual in its way as plaster to the walls of a
building? Could they but once be tempted to taste the delights which arise
from a perfectly clean and well-acting skin: the cheerfulness, nay, the
feeling of moral as well as physical elevation, which accompanies the
sense of that cleanliness, they would soon esteem the little time and
trouble spent in the bath, and in the proper care of the surface of the
body, as time and labor very well spent—DR. STRANGE.
The feet, particularly, should receive daily attention, if it be no more
than a vigorous rubbing with a wet cloth, followed by a dry one. After a
long walk, also, nothing is more refreshing, especially in summer, than a
generous footbath in cool or tepid water, followed by an entire change in
shoes and stockings. This is really a necessary precaution, if the feet
have become wet from the dampness of the ground; and if the walk has
heated the body so that the stockings are moist with perspiration, it is
not only an act of prudence, but an instinct of personal neatness.
Ancient Greek and Roman Baths.—From the earliest historic times
the necessity for frequent and thorough ablution has been recognized by
artificial provisions for this purpose. The Greeks had "steaming baths"
and "fragrant anointing oils," as far back as Homer's time, a thousand
years before Christ, but the Romans surpassed all preceding and subsequent
nations by their magnificent and luxuriously equipped Thermæ, in which a
bath cost less than a cent, and was often free. A full Roman bath included
hot air, dry rubbing, hot, tepid, and cold water immersions, scraping with
bronze instruments, and anointing with precious perfumes.
The Modern Russian and Turkish baths are the nearest
approaches we have to the Roman bath. These are found in nearly all our
larger cities.
The Turkish Bath is conducted in a modified form in this country,
generally with hot air instead of steam. Its frequent use not only tends
to keep the body in a state of perfect cleanliness, but it imparts a
clear, fresh color to the complexion which is hardly attained by other
means.
"Its most important effect," says a writer in the Popular Science
Monthly, "is the stimulation of the emunctory action of the skin. By
this means we are enabled to wash as it were the solid and fluid tissues,
and especially the blood and skin, by passing water through them from
within outward to the surface of the body. Hence, in practice, one of the
most essential requisites is copious draughts of water during the
sweating."
During the operation of a Turkish bath, the novice is often astonished at
the amount of effete matter eliminated from the pores of the skin. "A
surprising quantity of scarfskin, which no washing could remove, peels
off, especially if a glove of camel's-hair or goat's-hair be used, as they
are in the East, where also the soles of the feet are scraped with pumice.
The deposit of this skin of only a week's date, when collected, is often
as large as one's fist. Much more solid matter is contained in the
perspiration of those who take the bath for the first time, or after a
long interval. Nothing escapes through the skin, save what is noxious if
retained. This bath should never be used in case of advanced lung
diseases, great debility, acute inflammations, or persons who labor under
any form of heart disease; but I think its influence is directly curative
in rheumatic, gouty, and scrofulous affections, some skin diseases, and
the earlier stages of feverish colds and ague. It is said to have calming
effects in the treatment of insanity, and the use of it was suggested from
the heavy smell the skin of persons thus afflicted often has."—MAPOTHER'S
Lectures on Public Health.
A somewhat heroic bath, used in Siberia to drive away a threatened fever,
consists of a thorough parboiling, within an inch or two of a steaming
furnace, after which the subject is "drubbed and flogged for about half an
hour with a bundle of birch twigs, leaf and all." A douche of cold water
is then dashed over the exhausted bather, when he is ready to be put into
bed.
Sea Bathing.—Before the age of seven years, and after fifty-five,
sea baths should be used with the greatest caution. All persons
unaccustomed to sea bathing should begin with a warm or tepid bath, in
doors, proceeding by degrees to the cold indoor bath, and then to the open
sea.
The sea bath should be taken, if possible, when the sun is shining, when
the water has been warmed by contact with the heated sands, and never
during the digestion of the principal meal, or late in the evening.
Immediately on plunging into the water, which need not, except in persons
of full habit, cover the head, brisk motion of some kind should be used.
Those who can swim should do so; those who can not, should make as much
exertion of the limbs as possible, or rub the body with their hands. The
delicate, and particularly those who are recovering from illness, should
remove from the bath as soon as the glow arrives; or, if that be
not felt at all, then after one plunge.
Danger in Bathing when Overheated.—It is unwise to bathe when
copious perspiration has continued for an hour or more, unless the heat of
the weather be excessive, or the sweating has been induced by loading with
clothes, rather than by exertion. When much perspiration has been produced
by muscular exercise, it is unsafe to bathe, because the body is so
fatigued and exhausted, that the reaction can not be insured, and the
effect may be to congest the internal organs, and notably the nerve
centers. The latter gives cramp. If the weather be chilly, or there be a
cold wind, so that the body may be rapidly cooled at the surface while
undressing, it is not safe to bathe. Under such conditions, the further
chill of immersion in cold water will take place at the precise moment at
which the reaction consequent upon the chill of exposure by undressing
ought to take place, and this second chill will not only delay or
altogether prevent the reaction, but will convert the bath from a mere
stimulant to a depressant, ending in the abstraction of a large amount of
animal heat and congestion of the internal organs and nerve centers. The
aim must be to avoid two chills, and to make sure that the body is in such
a condition as to secure a quick reaction on emerging from the water,
without relying too much on the possible effect of friction by rubbing.
The actual temperature of the water does not affect the question so much
as its relative temperature in comparison with that of the surrounding
air. It ought to be much lower than that of the air. These maxims receive
a striking reenforcement from the case of a young soldier who a few days
ago plunged into the river near Manchester, England, after having heated
himself by rowing. He was immediately taken with cramps, and was drowned.
When taken out, his body was found "twisted," and the vessels of his head
showed every evidence of congestion.—Popular Science Monthly,
September, 1883.
Bather's Cramp.—Cramp is a painful and tonic muscular spasm. It
may occur in any part of the body, but it is especially apt to take place
in the lower extremities, and in its milder forms it is limited to a
single muscle. The pain is severe, and the contracted muscles are hard and
exquisitely tender. In a few minutes the spasm and pain cease, leaving a
local sensation of fatigue and soreness. When cramp affects only one
extremity, no swimmer or bather endowed with average presence of mind need
drown; but when cramp seizes the whole of the voluntary muscular system,
as it probably does in the worst cases, nothing in the absence of prompt
and efficient extraneous assistance can save the individual from drowning.
[Footnote: Even this is often unavailable, as in the case of the Cornell
University postgraduate drowned in Hall Creek, Ithaca, June 10, 1888. In
this instance the day was hot and oppressive, and the victim sank soon
after entering the water. "His companions at once hastened to his relief,
and recovered his body in a few minutes. Professor Wilder, of the
University, was hurriedly summoned, and every possible method was resorted
to in order to induce respiration, but the vital spark had fled. An attack
of cramps is supposed to have been the cause of drowning."] Prolongation
of muscular exertion, as in continued swimming, and forcible and sudden
muscular exertion, as in swimming with very vigorous and rapid strokes,
are efficient and frequent causes of cramp. These muscular conditions,
however, usually give rise only to the slighter and more localized forms.
Serious cramp is a peril which menaces most persons with highly developed
muscles. Its most powerful and most avoidable cause is the sudden
immersion of the body, when its surface is highly heated, in water of a
relatively low temperature.—Popular Science News.
Protection of the Ear in Sea Bathing.—Special attention should be
paid by bathers to the exclusion of salt water from the mouth and ears.
Many cases of inflammation of the ear, followed by severe and lasting
trouble, even to deafness, are chargeable to the neglect of this
precaution. Incoming waves should never be received in the face or the
ears, and the sea water which enters the ears when floating or diving
should be wiped out by soft cotton; indeed, the best plan is to plug the
openings of the ears with cotton, which is to be kept there during the
bath.—Science.
How one who Knows not how to Swim can Escape Drowning.—It is well
for every one to learn the art of swimming, yet it is a knowledge
possessed by comparatively few people. Mr. Henry MacCormac, a writer in
Nature, gives some common sense instructions that, if heeded, may
be of great service to those persons who, not knowing how to swim, may
find themselves accidentally precipitated into the water. We condense from
his article, adding some directions, as follows:
In order to escape drowning, it is necessary only to do as the brute does,
namely, to walk or tread the water. The brute has no advantage over man in
regard to his relative weight, and yet the man perishes while the brute
survives. The ignorance of so simple a possibility as that of treading
water strikes me as one of the most singular things in the history of man.
Perhaps something is to be ascribed to the vague meaning which is attached
to the word Swim. The dog is wholly incapable of swimming as
a man swims, but nothing is more certain than that a man, without previous
training or instruction, can swim just as a dog swims, and that by so
doing without fear or hesitancy, he will be just as safe as is the dog.
The brute thus circumstanced continues to go on all fours, as if he were
on land, keeping his head well out of the water. So with the man
who wishes to save his life and can not otherwise swim. He must strike
alternately, with hand and foot,—one, two, one, two,—without
hurry or precipitation, exactly as the brute does. Whether he be provided
with paw or hoof, the beast swims with perfect ease and buoyancy. So, too,
can the human being, if he will, with the further immense advantage of
having a paddle-formed hand, and of being able, when tired, to rest
himself by floating, an act of which the animal has no conception. The
printed direction should be pasted up in all boathouses, on every boat, at
every bathing place, and in every school: Tread water when you find
yourself out of your depth. This is all that need be said, unless,
indeed, we add: Float when you are tired. To float, one needs only
to turn upon his back, keeping—as always when in the water—the mouth and
chin well up and the lungs full of air.—Every one of us, of whatever age
and however encumbered with clothing, may tread water, even in a breaking
sea, with as much facility as a fourfooted animal. The position of the
water treader is, really, very much safer and better than the sprawling
attitude of the ordinary swimmer. But the chief advantage lies in the fact
that we can tread water without preliminary teaching, whereas, though we
recommend all to learn how to swim, it involves time and pains, entails
considerable fatigue, and is, after all, very seldom adequately acquired.
HINTS ON CLOTHING (p. 67).—Advantages of Woolen Fabrics.—Wool is
more irritating than cotton, on account of the stiffness of the hairs with
which it bristles; but the excitation it produces becomes a therapeutic
means whenever the skin needs a stimulant.
The use of wool is particularly desirable in some countries and under some
conditions of life. Professor Brocchi, a writer well known for his
investigations in malaria, attributes the good health and vigor of the
ancient Romans to their habit of wearing coarse woolen clothes; when they
began to disuse them, and to wear lighter goods and silks, they became
less vigorous and less able to resist the morbid influence of bad air. It
was at about the time the women began to dress in notably fine tissues
that the insalubrity of the Roman air began first to be complained of. "In
the English army and navy," says Dr. Balestra, "the soldiers of garrisons
in unhealthy places are obliged constantly to wear wool next to the skin,
and to cover themselves with sufficient clothing, for protection against
paludine fevers, dysentery, cholera, and other diseases." According to
Patissier, similar measures have been found effectual in preserving the
health of workmen employed on dikes, canals, and ditches, in marshy lands;
while, previous to the employment of these precautions, mortality from
fevers was considerable among them.
Dr. Balestra has proved by direct experiments in marshy regions that thick
and hairy woolen garments arrest in their down a portion of the germs
borne in by the air, which thus reaches the skin filtered and purified.
The ancient Romans wore ample over-garments over their tunics, and never
put them away. It is no less important to be well covered during the
night; and precautions of this kind should be recommended to all who live
in a swampy country. We are sometimes astonished when we see the natives
of particularly warm countries enveloped in woolen, as the Arab in his
burnoose, or the Spanish peasant in his tobacco-colored cloak. Such
materials protect both against the rays of the sun and against the
coolness of the night, and are excellent regulators of heat. It is
dangerously imprudent to travel in southern countries without provision of
warm clothing.—Revue des Deux Mondes.
Weight is not Warmth.—While speaking of the warmth of clothing for
inclement weather, it would be incorrect not to speak of weight in
relation to warmth. Many persons mistake weight for warmth, and thus
feeble people are actually borne down and weakened by the excess of heavy
clothing which is piled on them. Good woolen or fur fabrics retain the
heat, and yet are light. When fabrics intended for sustaining warmth are
made up of cotton, the mistake of accepting weight for warmth is made. The
same errors are often made in respect to bed coverings, and with the same
results.
Poisonously Dyed Clothing.—The introduction of wearing apparel,
socks, stockings, and flannels which have been made, by new processes of
dyeing, to assume a rich red or yellow color, has led to a local disease
of the skin, attended, in rare cases, with slight constitutional symptoms.
This disease is due to the dyestuffs. The chief poisonous dyes are the red
and yellow coralline, substances derived from that series of chemical
bodies which have been obtained of late years from coal tar, and commonly
known as the aniline series.
The coloring principle is extremely active as a local poison. It induces
on the skin a reddish, slightly raised eruption of minute round pimples
which stud the reddened surface, and which, if the irritation be severe
and long-continued, pass into vesicles discharging a thin watery ichor and
producing a superficial sore. The disease is readily curable if the cause
of it be removed, and, as a general rule, it is purely local in character.
I have, however, once seen it pass beyond the local stage. A young
gentleman consulted me for what he considered was a rapidly developed
attack of erysipelas on the chest and back. He was, indeed, covered with
an intensely red rash, and he was affected with nervous symptoms, with
faintness and depression of pulse, of a singular and severe kind. I traced
both the local eruption and the general malady to the effect of the
organic dye in a red woolen chest and back "comforter." On removing the
"comforter" all the symptoms ceased. Similar and even fatal cases have
been known from the wearing of highly colored hose.
Uncleanliness of Dress.—Uncleanly attire creates conditions
favorable to disease. Clothing worn too long at a time becomes saturated
with the excretions and exhalations of the body, and, by preventing the
free transpiration from the surface of the skin, induces oppression of the
physical powers and mental inactivity. This observation will be accepted
by most persons as true in respect to underclothing; it is equally true in
regard to those outer garments which are often worn, unremittingly, until
the linings, torn and soiled, are unfit altogether for contact with the
cleaner garments beneath them. Health will not be clothed in dirty
raiment. They who wear such raiment suffer from trains of minor
complaints; from oppression, dullness, headache, nausea, which, though
trifling in themselves, taken one by one, when put together greatly reduce
that standard of perfect health by which the value of life is correctly
and effectively maintained.—RICHARDSON.
RESPIRATION.
THE VOCAL ORGANS.—Musical Tones in Speaking (p. 76).—Voice is
divided into singing and speaking voice. One differs from the other almost
as much as noises do from musical sounds. In speaking, the sounds are too
short to be easily appreciable, and are not separated by fixed and regular
intervals, like those of singing; they are linked together, generally by
insensible transitions; they are not united by the fixed relations of the
gamut, and can only be noted with difficulty. That it is the short
duration of speaking sounds which distinguished them from those of
singing, is proved by this, that if we prolong the intonation of a
syllable, or utter it like a note, the musical sound becomes evident. So,
if we pronounce all the syllables of a phrase in the same tone, the
speaking voice closely resembles psalm singing. Every one must have
noticed this in hearing schoolboys recite or read in a monotone, and the
analogy is complete when the last two or three syllables are pronounced in
a different tone. Spoken voice is, moreover, always a chant more or less
marked, according to the individual and the sentiment which the words
express….It is related of Gretry, that he amused himself by noting as
exactly as possible the "Bonjour, monsieur!" (Good day, sir!) of the
persons who visited him; and these words expressed by their intonation, in
fact, the most opposite sentiments, in spite of the constant identity of
the literal sense.
Speech without a Tongue.—De Jussieu relates that he saw a girl
fifteen years old, in Lisbon, who was born without a tongue, and yet who
spoke so distinctly as not to excite in the minds of those who listened to
her the least suspicion of the absence of that organ.
The Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1742) contain an account
of a woman who had not the slightest vestige of a tongue, but who could,
notwithstanding, drink, eat, and speak as well and as distinctly as any
one, and even articulate the words in singing. Other instances have been
known where individuals, after losing a portion of the tongue by accident
or disease, have again been able to speak after a longer or shorter
period.—LE PILEUR.
Stimulants and the Voice.—"The Drinker's Throat" is a recognized
pathological condition, and the Germans have a popular phrase, "He drinks
his throat away." Isambert has pointed out the directly local irritant
effect of both alcohol and tobacco on the throat, and also the mode by
which these agents, on absorption into the system, re-manifest their
presence by predisposing to local pharyngeal inflammations. Dr. Krishaber
affirms: "It is generally admitted that alcoholic beverages and tobacco
irritate the mucous membrane of the throat, directly affect the voice, and
leave on it ineffaceable traces. We hold with equal certainty that tea and
coffee, although not directly affecting the voice, do so indirectly by
acting on the nervous system, and through it the vocal organs, as well as
by, some general nervous derangement not very pronounced, but great enough
to deprive the singer of the full powers and capabilities of his voice."
Dr. Mackenzie says: "The influence of the general health upon the voice is
very marked. Alcohol and tobacco should never be used. The hoarse tones of
the confirmed votary of Bacchus are due to chronic inflammation of the
lining membrane of the larynx; the originally smooth surface being
roughened and thickened by the irritation of alcohol, the vocal cords have
less freedom of movement, and their vibrations are blurred, or rather
muffled, by the unevenness of their contiguous edges."
A young American lady of marked musical gifts once asked Adelina Patti's
advice upon preparing for the stage. She found the great singer wrapped in
furs, although the weather was not severe. After hearing her visitor,
Patti replied: "Are you willing to give up everything for your art?
If you wish to succeed, you must learn to eat moderately, take no
stimulants—not even tea or coffee—keep as regular hours as possible
consistent with your public appearance, and even deny yourself the luxury
of friends. When you hear of a great vocalist giving extravagant wine
suppers, you may be sure that the singer herself takes nothing. To be a
successful artiste you must be married, soul and body, to your
art." Like the young man to whom Christ spake, the young woman "went away
sorrowful," and, balancing the terms, concluded to forego the contest.
ABDOMINAL RESPIRATION (p. 8l).—It has often been stated that the
respiration of woman differs from that of man, in being limited almost
entirely to the chest. In order to investigate this subject
scientifically, Dr. Mays, of Philadelphia, devised an ingenious instrument
for examining the respiration of the native Indian girls in the Lincoln
Institution. The girls had not yet been subjected to the restrictions of
civilized dress. He says:
"In all, I examined the movements of eighty-two chests, and in each case
took an abdominal and a costal tracing. The girls were partly pure and
partly mixed with white blood, and their ages ranged from between ten and
twenty years. Thus there were thirty-three full-blooded Indians, five one
fourth, thirty-five one half, and two three fourths white. Seventy-
five showed a decided abdominal type of breathing, three a
costal type, and three in which both were about even. Those who showed
the costal type, or a divergence from the abdominal type, came from the
more civilized tribes, like the Mohawks and Chippewas, and were either
one half or three fourths white; while in no single
instance did a full-blooded Indian girl possess this type of
breathing.
"From these observations it obviously follows that, so far as the Indian
is concerned, the abdominal is the original type of respiration in both
male and female, and that the costal type in the civilized female is
developed through the constricting influence of dress around the abdomen.
While these tracings were taken an incident occurred which demonstrated
that abdominal constriction could modify the movements of the thorax
during respiration. At my first visit to the institution I obtained an
exceptional costal type of respiration from a full-blooded Indian girl. At
my next visit I concluded to repeat this observation, and found that,
contrary to my instructions concerning loose clothing, etc., this girl at
my first visit had worn three tight belts around her abdomen. After these
were removed she gave the abdominal type of breathing, which is
characteristic of nearly all the Indian girls."
To us these facts are invaluable. It shows the faulty construction of
modern female dress, which restricts the motion of abdominal respiration.
It explains why, as experience has taught us, it is necessary to restore
this abdominal rhythm, by proper movements, in order permanently to cure
the affections of the lower portion of the trunk. It demonstrates
conclusively that woman's dress, to be injurious, needs only to interfere
with the proper motion of respiration, even though it exercises not the
slightest compression.—Health Record.
THE GERM THEORY OF DISEASE (p. 86).—What are Disease Germs?—
Microscopical investigation has revealed throughout Nature, in the air, in
water—especially when it contains organic matter, and even within the
bodies of persons and animals, myriads of infinitesimal active organisms
which live, multiply, and die in endless succession. These have been named
bacteria (bacterium, a rod, so called from the general rod shape
first observed), and also microbes (microbe, a small living
object). Some investigators apply the latter term as a general one,
limiting the former to such microbes as are believed to be special disease
producers. The "Germ Theory" teaches that the seeds or spores of
bacteria, floating in the air we breathe or in the water we drink, are
taken into our bodies where, under conditions favorable to their growth,
they develop, multiply, and, each after its own species, produce
distinctive evil results.—Thus, according to this theory, there are
special varieties of microbes that cause, respectively, diphtheria,
erysipelas, scarlatina, cholera, etc.—One of the most common microbes in
nature is the bacterium of putrefaction, found everywhere in decaying
organic matter. [Footnote: This is the microbe found in impure water. If
we take half a glass of spring or river water, and leave it uncovered for
a few days, we shall observe upon it a thin coating of what appears to be
a fine dust. Place, now, a drop of this dusty water under a cover glass,
and examine it under a microscope with a magnifying power of about five
hundred diameters. The revelation is astonishing. "The whole field of the
microscope is in motion; hundreds of bacteria, resembling minute
transparent worms, are swimming in every direction with an undulatory
motion like that of an eel or snake. Some are detached, others united in
pairs, others in chains or chaplets or cylindrical rods….All these forms
represent the different transformations of Bacterium termo, or the
microbe of putrefaction. Those which are dead appear as small, rigid, and
immovable rods."—TROUESSART.]
By the species of microbes called ferments all fermented liquors are
artificially produced (see p. 132); these also cause the "rising" of
bread.—These wonderful little existences are thus made to perform an
important part in the economy of Nature. "Nourished at the expense of
putrefying organic matter, they reduce its complex constituents into
soluble mineral substances, which they return to the soil to serve afresh
for the nourishment of similar plants. Thus they clear the surface of the
earth from dead bodies and fecal matter, and from all the useless
substances which are the refuse of life; and thus they unite animals and
plants in an endless chain."—TROUESSART.
How Disease Germs Grow.—Experiments having shown that no life is
known to spring from inanimate matter, we may reasonably suppose that just
as wheat does not grow except from seed, so no disease occurs without some
disease germ to produce it. Then, again, we may logically assume that each
disease is due to the development of a particular kind of germ. If we
plant smallpox germs, we do not reap a crop of scarlatina or measles; but,
just as wheat springs from wheat, each disease has its own distinctive
germs. Each comes from a parent stock, and has existed somewhere
previously….Under ordinary circumstances, these germs, though nearly
always present, are comparatively few in number, and in an extremely dry
and indurated state. Hence, they may frequently enter our bodies without
meeting with the conditions essential to their growth; for experiments
have shown that it is very difficult to moisten them, and till they are
moistened, they do not begin to develop. In a healthy system they remain
inactive. But anything tending to weaken or impair the bodily organs,
furnishes favorable conditions, and thus epidemics almost always originate
and are most fatal in those quarters of our great cities where dirt,
squalor, and foul air render sound health almost an impossibility….
Having once got a beginning, epidemics rapidly spread. The germs are then
sent into the air in great numbers, and in a moist state; and the
probabilities of their entering, and of their establishing themselves
even in healthy bodies, are vastly increased….Climate and the weather
have also much influence on the vitality of these germs. Cold is a
preventive against some diseases, heat against others. Tyndall found that
sunlight greatly retarded and sometimes entirely prevented putrefaction;
while dirt is always favorable to the growth and development of germs.
Sunshine and cleanliness are undoubtedly the best and cheapest
preventives against disease.—"Disease Germs" Chambers's Journal.
You know the exquisitely truthful figures employed in the New Testament
regarding leaven. A particle hid in three measures of meal leavens it all.
A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. In a similar manner a particle
of contagium spreads through the human body, and may be so multiplied as
to strike down whole populations. Consider the effect produced upon the
system by a microscopic quantity of the virus of smallpox. That virus is
to all intents and purposes a seed. It is sown as leaven is sown, it grows
and multiplies as leaven grows and multiplies, and it always reproduces
itself….Contagia are living things, which demand certain elements of
life, just as inexorably as trees, or wheat, or barley; and it is not
difficult to see that a crop of a given parasite may so far use up a
constituent existing in small quantities in the body, but essential in the
growth of the parasite, as to render the body unfit for the production of
a second crop. The soil is exhausted; and until the lost constituent is
restored, the body is protected from any further attack from the same
disorder. To exhaust a soil, however, a parasite less vigorous and
destructive than the really virulent one may suffice; and if, after
having, by means of a feebler organism, exhausted the soil without fatal
result, the most highly virulent parasite be introduced into the system,
it will prove powerless. This, in the language of the germ theory, is the
whole secret of vaccination.—TYNDALL.
Disease Germs Contained in Atmospheric Dust.—Take the extracted
juice of beef or mutton, so prepared as to be perfectly transparent, and
entirely free from the living germs of bacteria. Into the clear liquid let
fall the tiniest drop of an infusion charged with the bacteria of
putrefaction. Twenty-four hours subsequently, the clear extract will be
found muddy throughout, the turbidity being due to swarms of bacteria
generated by the drop with which the infusion was inoculated. At the same
time the infusion will have passed from a state of sweetness to a state of
putridity. Let a drop similar to that which has produced this effect fall
into an open wound: the juices of the living body nourish the bacteria as
the beef or mutton juice nourished them, and you have putrefaction
produced within the system. The air, as I have said, is laden with
floating matter which, when it falls upon the wound, acts substantially
like the drop….A few years ago I was bathing in an Alpine stream, and,
returning to my clothes from the cascade which had been my shower bath, I
slipped upon a block of granite, the sharp crystals of which stamped
themselves into my naked shin. The wound was an awkward one, but, being in
vigorous health at the time, I hoped for a speedy recovery. Dipping a
clean pocket handkerchief into the stream, I wrapped it round the wound,
limped home, and remained for four or five days quietly in bed. There was
no pain, and at the end of this time I thought myself quite fit to quit my
room. The wound, when uncovered, was found perfectly clean, uninflamed,
and entirely free from pus. Placing over it a bit of gold beater's skin, I
walked about all day. Toward evening, itching and heat were felt; a large
accumulation of pus followed, and I was forced to go to bed again. The
water bandage was restored, but it was powerless to check the action now
set up; arnica was applied, but it made matters worse. The inflammation
increased alarmingly, until finally I was ignobly carried on men's
shoulders down the mountain, and transported to Geneva, where, thanks to
the kindness of friends, I was immediately placed in the best medical
hands. On the morning after my arrival in Geneva, Dr. Gautier discovered
an abscess in my instep, at a distance of five inches from the wound. The
two were connected by a channel, or sinus, as it is technically
called, through which he was able to empty the abscess without the
application of the lance.
By what agency was that channel formed—what was it that thus tore asunder
the sound tissue of my instep, and kept me for six weeks a prisoner in
bed? In the very room where the water dressing had been removed from my
wound and the gold beater's skin applied to it, I opened this year a
number of tubes, containing perfectly clear and sweet infusions of fish,
flesh, and vegetable. These hermetically sealed infusions had been exposed
for weeks, both to the sun of the Alps and to the warmth of a kitchen,
without showing the slightest turbidity or signs of life. But two days
after they were opened, the greater number of them swarmed with the
bacteria of putrefaction, the germs of which had been contracted from the
dust-laden air of the room. And, had the pus from my abscess been
examined, my memory of its appearance leads me to infer that it would have
been found equally swarming with these bacteria—that it was their germs
which got into my incautiously opened wound. They were the subtile workers
that burrowed down my shin, dug the abscess in my instep, and produced
effects which might well have proved fatal to me.—TYNDALL.
Disease Germs Carried in Soiled Clothing (p. 89).—The conveyance
of cholera germs by bodies of men moving along the lines of human
communication, without necessarily affecting the individuals who transport
them, is now easy to understand; for it is well established that clothes
or linen soiled by cholera patients may not only impart the germs with
which they are contaminated to those who handle them when fresh, but that,
after having been dried and packed, they may infect persons at any
distance who incautiously unfold them. Thus, while the nurses of cholera
patients may, with proper precautions, enjoy an absolute immunity from
attack, the disease germs may be introduced into new localities without
any ostensible indication of their presence. It is obvious that the only
security against such introduction consists in the destruction or thorough
disinfection of every scrap of clothing or linen which has been about the
person of a cholera patient.—DR. CARPENTER.
I have known scarlet fever to be carried by the clothing of a nurse into a
healthy family, and communicate the disease to every member of the family.
I have known cholera to be communicated by the clothes of the affected
person to the women engaged in washing the clothes. I have known smallpox
conveyed by clothes that had been made in a room where the tailor had by
his side sufferers from the terrible malady. I have seen the new cloth,
out of which was to come the riding habit for some innocent child to
rejoice in as she first wore it, undergo the preliminary duty of forming
part of the bed clothing of another child stricken down with fever.
Lastly, I have known scarlet fever, smallpox, typhus, and cholera,
communicated by clothing contaminated in the laundry.—DR. RICHARDSON.
THE SANITARY HOME (see p. 94).—1. The Site.—First and foremost of
all the things you are to consider, is the healthfulness of a situation.
The brightest house and cheeriest outlook in nature will be made somber by
the constant presence of a doctor, and the wandering around of an unseen,
but ever felt, specter in the shape of miasm….Malaria-malus, bad; aria,
air—means, in its common definition, simply bad air. Miasma is its
synonym,—infecting effluvia floating in the air. Because, as everybody
knows, certain places have always chills and fever associated with them,
and other places have not, it follows that between such places there is
some fact of difference; this fact is the presence of miasm, a cause of
disease, having a signification associative with the locality….
Vegetation, heat, and moisture: these are the three active agents in the
production of miasma, to which a fourth is to be added, in the influence
of non-drainage, either by the way of the atmosphere or running water. The
strongest example of a malarious locality one might make would be in
suggesting a marshy valley in a tropical climate, so overrun with fixed
water as to destroy a prolific vegetation, yet not covering it enough to
protect the garbage from the putrefying influences of the sun; this
valley, in turn, so environed with hills as to shut off a circulation of
air….Ground newly broken is not unapt to generate miasm. This results
from the sudden exposure of long-buried vegetable matter to the influences
of moisture and heat….It may readily be conceived that malarious
situations exist where the miasm is not sufficient in quantity to produce
the effects of intermittent or bilious fever, yet where there is quite
enough of it to keep a man feeling good for nothing,—he is not sick, but
he is never well. I know of one country seat of this kind, where forty
thousand dollars would not pay for the improvements put upon it, and
where, I am free to declare, I would not think of living, even if, as an
inducement, a free gift were made to me of the place….Besides miasm,
there are other atmospheric associations to be considered. I recall this
moment a distillery, where attempt was made to get clear of the mash by
throwing it into a running stream, with the anticipation of its being
carried to the river, but where, on the contrary, it became a stagnant
putrescent mass, impregnating the air for miles with its unendurable odor,
and inducing such a typhoid tendency that half the countryside were down
with fever….There are, again, situations where the filth and debris of
sewage exercise a poisoning influence on the surrounding atmosphere. This
has its principal application to the neighborhood of cities and towns
drained into adjoining streams. London and the Thames furnish a notable
illustration. A cove, attractive as it is, may prove a receptacle for the
accumulation of dead fish and other offal, which shall make untenable the
charming cottage upon the bank. A deep cove has rarely healthy
surroundings, the circulation of its water being too sluggish to insure
freshness and vitality. Water, like blood, to be healthy, must be in a
state of continuous movement.
A nonobservant man, purchasing a beautiful stream, may be completely
disappointed by finding that the opacity of its water depends upon a
factory, of which he had never so much as heard; he may not let his
children bathe in it, for he may well fear for them the fate of the fish
he so plentifully finds lying dead upon the shore. A poisoned rural stream
is as sad a sight as it has grown to be a common one. Always, before
buying water, know what there is up stream, or what there is likely to be.
Never buy a country house without seeing to it that the foundation stands
upon a higher level than some channel which may drain it, and this, by the
way, is not to consider alone the dry summer day on which you go first to
visit the place; you are to think of the winter and spring. Look to it
that no excess of water shall be able to drown you out; some places, which
in dry weather are glorious, are, in winter and spring, ankle deep in
slush and mire, and everything about them is as wet as a soaked board.
Open the front door of such a house, and a chill strikes you instantly. A
fire must be kept the year round, or otherwise you live in the moisture of
a vault. Places there are of this class where the question of the water
from the kitchen pump comes to absorb the attention of the whole
household.
No shade is an abomination. A bilious fever fattens in the sun as does
miasm in a marshy valley. Too much shade, on the contrary, and too near
the house, is equally of ill import; it keeps things damp, and dampness is
a breeder of pestilence. An atmosphere confined about a house by too dense
foliage is, like the air of an unventilated room, not fit for practical
purposes. The sporadic poisons have an intimate relationship with
dampness; miasm lives in it as does a snail in his shell. Besides this, it
shuts out the cool breath of the summer nights, and makes restless
swelterers where even a blanket might be enjoyed.—DR. JOHN DARBY, Odd
Hours of a Physician.
2. The House.—So construct the dwelling from foundation to roof
that no dampness can result. Give to the cellar dry walls, a cement floor,
and windows enough to insure constant currents of air. Insist upon such a
system of immediate and perfect sewerage as shall render contamination
impossible. If "modern improvements" are afforded, see that the plumbing
embraces the latest and most scientific sanitary inventions. Do not
economize on this point; health, perhaps life, depends upon the perfect
working of the various traps. Having employed the most skilled and
intelligent plumbers, overlook their work so that you may fully understand
the principle applied.
Provide for ample ventilation in every apartment, above and below. Let the
sleeping rooms be above stairs, and furnished with appliances for moderate
warmth in winter. Treat yourself and your family to as many fireplaces as
possible. Indulge in a spacious piazza, so placed that it will not cut off
the light from the family sitting room, and, if you can, include a balcony
or two, large enough to hold a chair and a table, or a workbasket.
Remember that a house is for convenience and protection only when you
can not be in the open air.
3. The kitchen and the Dust Heap.—Removal of Household Refuse.—It
has to be assumed, especially where servants are not carefully overlooked,
that the dust heap of most houses will contain more or less decomposing
organic matter, such as bits of meat, scales and refuse of fish, tea and
coffee grounds, and the peelings of vegetables, which, though quite out of
place in the ash heap, are apt surreptitiously to be thrown upon it. Such
matter soon becomes offensive and even dangerous, and a few days'
retention of it in warm weather constitutes a legal nuisance. Household
refuse should be carted away as often as once in two days; in extreme hot
weather, daily. Where it is inexpedient to remove it frequently, it should
be kept covered to the depth of two or three inches with a layer of
powdered charcoal, or freshly burnt lime, or, at least, of clear dry
earth. All soil which has become foul by the soakage of decaying or
vegetable matter should be similarly treated. The refuse heap should be
protected from rain, and liquids should never be thrown upon it. Where
obnoxious matter has been allowed to accumulate, its disturbance for
removal should be conducted with special precaution, both on account of
its temporary offensiveness of odor and the more serious results which may
follow. It can not be too distinctly understood that cleanliness,
ventilation, and dryness are the best of all deodorizers. One of the first
of household regulations should be to see that no unsanitary rubbish
remains in or about the dwelling. Keep the dust heap itself at the
farthest practicable remove from the house. Sow grass seed plentifully
upon the back premises, and induce tidiness in the domestics by having the
kitchen door open upon a well-kept lawn.
Burning of Garbage.—The easiest, quickest, and most sanitary
method of disposing of household garbage is to burn it This plan has been
officially recommended by the Boards of Health in various cities. Many
housekeepers have adopted it, and find it so practicable that in New York
City there has become a marked decrease in the amount of household refuse
collected by the scavengers. If, after every meal, the draughts of the
range be opened, and all waste matter be deposited within, a few moments,
or at most, a half hour, will effectually dispose of it, and prevent all
the dangers that arise from its retention and accumulation. In the
country, where there is plenty of ground, nearly all rubbish can be
destroyed in this way and by outside fires, with the additional advantage
that the—E. R. S.
4. The Sewers and Drains.—How to Keep out Sewer Air.—The most
perfectly flushed sewers that are made, under the latest and fullest
sanitary light, must, owing to the constant entrance of greasy and other
adhesive material, contain more or less of particles that "stick," and
also more or less of fungi and mold; so that here, shut away from light
and air, goes on the peculiar fermentation that fits it for the soil or
habitat of the malarial germ. These germs, the soil once ready, take
possession and multiply, whether that soil be a sewer or the blood of a
person who sits calmly unconscious in a gorgeous chamber above, with a
small continuation of the sewer extending untrapped up to his washbowl.—
DR. DERBY.
Keep constant watch of your traps and drains. Cultivate the faculty of
detecting sewer gas in the house. Always fear a smell; trace it to its
source and provide a remedy. At the same time, bear in mind that it is not
always the foul smell that is most dangerous. There is a close, sweet odor
often present in bathrooms, and about drains, that is deadly as the Upas
tree. Bad air from neglected drains causes not only fevers, dysentery, and
diphtheria, but asthma and other chronic disorders. Illuminating gas,
escaping from pipes and prevented from exuding by frozen earth, has been
known to pass sidewise for some distance into houses. Thus also the air
from cesspools and porous or broken drains finds its way, when an
examination of the household entrance to the drain fails to reveal the
cause of an existing effluvia. But, however bad the drain may be outside
the house, there is little to fear provided the gas can escape externally.
Every main drain should have a ventilating pipe carried from it directly
outside the house to the top of the highest chimney. The soil pipe inside
the house should be carried up through the roof and be open at the top.
Digging for drains or other purposes should not be allowed when the
mercury stands above 60°; but if, as in repairs of pipes, it becomes
necessary to dig about the house in hot weather, let it be done in the
middle of the day, and replace the turf as speedily as possible. If the
soil be damp, or the district malarious, sprinkle quicklime upon the earth
as fast as it is turned.
How to Clear Waste Pipes.—The "sewer gas," about which so much has
been written, and which is so justly dreaded, is not, as many suppose, the
exclusive product of the sewer. Indeed, the foul and dangerous gases are
not only found in the sewers themselves, but in the unventilated waste
pipes, and those which are in process of being clogged by the foul matter
passing through them. Any obstruction in the soil or waste pipes is
therefore doubly dangerous, because it may produce an inflow of foul gas
into the pipe, even though the entrance to the sewer itself has been
entirely cut off.
In pipes leading from the house to the cesspool, there is a constant
accumulation of grease. This enters as a liquid, but hardens as the water
cools, and is deposited on the bottom and sides of the pipes. As these
accumulations increase, the water way is gradually contracted, till the
pipe is closed.
When the pipe is entirely stopped, or allows the water to fall away by
drops only, proceed thus: Empty the pipe down to the trap, as far as
practicable, by "mopping up" with a cloth. If the water flows very slowly,
begin when the pipe has at last emptied itself. Fill the pipe up with
potash, crowding it with a stick. Then allow hot water to trickle upon the
potash, or pour the hot water upon it in a small stream, stopping as soon
as the pipe appears to be filled. As the potash dissolves and disappears,
add more water. At night a little heap of potash may be placed over the
hole, and water enough poured on so that a supply of strong lye will flow
into the pipe during the night.
Pipes that have been stopped for months may be cleaned out by this method,
though it may call for three or four pounds of potash. The crudest kind,
however, appears to act as well as the best. If the pipe is partially
obstructed, a lump of crude potash should be placed where water will drip
slowly upon it, and so reach the pipe. As water comes in contact with the
potash, it becomes hot, thus aiding in dissolving the grease. Potash, in
combination with grease, forms a "soft" or liquid soap, which easily flows
away. It is also destructive to all animal and most mineral matters.
Some of the most dangerous gases come from wash-basin pipes, being,
perhaps, the result of the decay of the soap and the animal matter washed
from the skin.
When a pipe is once fairly cleaned out, the potash should be used from
time to time, in order to dissolve the greasy deposits as they form, and
carry them forward to the cesspool or sewer.—Artisan.
What Came from a Neighbor's Cesspool.—Keep watch not only of your
own premises, but stand on guard against those of your neighbors. Dr.
Carpenter cites a case wherein "four members of a certain household were
attacked with typhoid fever, one of whom narrowly escaped with her life.
The circumstances left no doubt in the mind of the attending physician
that the malady originated in the opening of an old cesspool belonging to
a neighboring house, then in course of demolition. The house in which the
outbreak took place is large and airy, and stands by itself in a most
salubrious situation. The most careful examination failed to disclose any
defect either in its drainage or its water supply; there was no typhoid in
the neighborhood; and the milk supply was unexceptional. But the
neighboring house being old, and having been occupied by a school, its
removal had been determined on to make way for a house of higher class;
and as the offensive odor emanating from the uncovered cesspool was at
once perceived in the next garden, and the outbreak of typhoid followed at
the usual interval, the case seems one which admits of no reasonable
question."
5. The Cellar.—A Typical Bad Cellar.—Did the reader ever,
when a child, see the cellar afloat at some old home in the country? You
creep part way down the cellar stairs with only the light of a single
tallow candle, and behold by its dim glimmer an expanse of dark water,
boundless as the sea. On its surface, in dire confusion, float barrels and
boxes, butter firkins and washtubs, boards, planks, hoops, and staves
without number, interspersed with apples, turnips, and cabbages, while
half-drowned rats and mice, scrambling up the stairway for dear life,
drive you affrighted back to the kitchen….Now consider the case of one
of these old farmhouse cellars that has been in use fifty years or more.
In it have been stored all the potatoes, turnips, cabbages, onions, and
other vegetables for family food. The milk and cream, the pork and beef,
and cider and vinegar, have all met with various accidents, and from time
to time have had their juices, in various stages of decay, absorbed by the
soil of the cellar bottom. The cats have slept there to fight the rats and
the mice, who have had their little homes behind the walls for half a
century; and the sink spouts have for the same term poured into the soil
close by, their fragrant fluids. The water rushes upward and sideways into
the cellar, forming, with the savory ingredients at which we have
delicately hinted, a sort of broth, quite thin and watery at first, but
growing thicker as the water slowly subsides and leaves its grosser parts
pervading the surface of the earth, walls, and partitions. All this time
the air rushes in at the openings of the cellar, and presses constantly
upward, often lifting the carpets from the floors, and is breathed day and
night by all who dwell in the house. Does it require learned doctors or
boards of health to inform any rational person that these conditions are
unfavorable to health?—MRS. PLUNKETT, Women, Plumbers, and
Doctors.
What Came from a Crack in a Cellar Wall.—A few years ago a Boston
gentleman inherited a house, situated on one of the most desirable streets
of the city. Resolving to make a healthy as well as a beautiful home, he.
spent a large sum, and gave personal supervision to all the details of an
elaborate system of plumbing. He moved in. Imagine his grief and
disappointment when member after member of his family succumbed to
diphtheria, and an infant and a grown daughter died. Though so deeply
smitten, he did not lose his belief in the connection between cause and
effect. He ordered a minute investigation of the premises by experts. A
slight crack, so small as to have escaped ordinary observation, was found
in the cellar wall. Investigation of the premises next door—the inmates
of which were also suffering from diphtheria—showed a choked-up drain,
which ought to have connected with the sewer, but did not. The filthy ooze
from this was pouring out, just where its effluvium and its disease germs
could pass without any hindrance through the crack.
Now that it is shown that gases pass through bricks and many kinds of
stone, it is easy to see that the sanitary welfare of one is the sanitary
welfare of all.—MRS. PLUNKETT.
6. The Bedroom.—The Bed a Night Garment.—There is still
one of our garments to be considered, which generally is not regarded as
such. I mean the bed—that piece of clothing in which we spend such a
great part of our time.
The bed is not only a place of rest; it is especially our sleeping
garment, and has often to make up for privations endured during the day
and the day's work, and to give us strength for to-morrow. Like our day
garments, the bed covering must be airy and warm at the same time. We
warm the bed by our body, just as we warm our clothes, and the bed warms
the air which is continually flowing through it from below, upward. The
regulating strata must be more powerful in their action than in our day
clothes, because during rest and sleep the metamorphosis of our tissues
and the resulting heat become less; and because in a horizontal position
we lose more heat by an ascending current of air than in a vertical
position, where the warm ascending current is in more complete and longer
contact with our upright body.
The warmth of the bed sustains the circulation in our surface to a certain
degree for the benefit of our internal organs at a time when our
production of heat is at its lowest ebb. Hence the importance of the bed
for our heat and blood economy. Several days without rest in a bed not
only make us sensible of a deficiency in the recruiting of our strength,
but very often produce quite noticeable perturbations in our bodily
economy, from which the bed would have protected us.—DR. MAX VON
PETTENKOFFER.
Bed Ventilation.—It often happens that the desire of the energetic
housekeeper to have her work done at an early hour in the morning, causes
her to leave one of the most important items of neatness undone. The most
effectual purifying of bed and bedclothes can not take place, if the
proper time is not allowed, for the free circulation of pure air, to
remove all human impurities which have collected during the hours of
slumber. At least two or three hours should be allowed for the complete
removal of atoms of insensible perspiration which are absorbed by the bed.
Every day the airing should be done; and, occasionally, bedding constantly
used should be carried into the open air, and left exposed to the sun and
wind for half a day.—Home and Health.
CIRCULATION.
THE PULSE (p. 116).—The pulse which is felt by the finger does not
correspond precisely with the beat of the heart, but takes place a little
after it, and the interval is longer, the greater the distance of the
artery from the heart. The beat of the artery on the inner side of the
ankle, for example, is a little later than the beat of the artery in the
temple.—HUXLEY.
The pulse is increased by exertion, and thus is more rapid in a standing
than in a sitting, and in a sitting than in a lying posture. It is
quickened by meals, and while varying thus from time to time during the
day, is on the whole quicker in the evening than in early morning. It is
said to be quicker in summer than in winter. Even independently of
muscular exertion, it seems to be quickened by great altitude. Its rate is
also profoundly influenced by mental conditions.—FOSTER.
CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD IN THE BRAIN (p. l20).—Signer Mosso, who has
been engaged on the subject for six years, has published some new
observations on the different conditions of the circulation of the blood
in the brain. He has had the privilege of observing three patients who had
holes in their skulls, permitting the examination of the encephalic
movements and circulation. No part of the body exhibits a pulsation so
varied in its form as the brain. The pulsation may be described as
tricuspid; that is, it consists of a strong beat, preceded and followed by
lesser beats. It gathers strength when the brain is at work, corresponding
with the more rapid flow of blood to the organ. The increase in the volume
of the brain does not depend upon any change in the respiratory rhythm;
for, if we take the pulse of the forearm simultaneously with that of the
brain, we can not perceive that the cerebral labor exercises any influence
upon the forearm, although the pulsation in the brain may be considerably
modified. The emotions have a similar effect upon the circulation of the
brain to that of cerebral labor. Signor Mosso has also observed and
registered graphically the variations of the cerebral pulse during sleep.
Generally the pulses of the wrist and the brain vary oppositely. At the
moment of waking, the pulse of the wrist diminishes, while that of the
brain increases. The cerebral pulsations diminish as sleep grows deeper,
and at last become very weak. Outward excitations determine the same
modifications during sleep as in the waking state, without waking the
sleeper. A deep inspiration always produces a diminution in the volume of
the brain, in consequence, probably, of the increased flow of blood into
the veins of the thoracic cavity; the increase of volume in the brain,
when it takes place, is, on the contrary, due to a more abundant flow of
arterial blood to the encephalus.—Popular Science Monthly, March,
1882.
CATARRHAL COLDS (p. l30).—I maintain that it can be proved, with as
absolute certainty as any physiological fact admits of being proved, that
warm, vitiated indoor air is the cause, and cold outdoor air the best
cure, of catarrh….Fresh cold air is a tonic that invigorates the
respiratory organs when all other stimulants fail, and, combined with arm
exercise and certain dietetic alternatives, it is the best remedy for all
disorders of the lungs and upper air passages….A combination of the
three specifics,—exercise, abstinence, and fresh air,—will cure the most
obstinate cold….Frost is such a powerful disinfectant, that in very cold
nights the lung-poisoning atmosphere of few houses can resist its
purifying influence; in spite of padded doors, in spite of "weatherstrips"
and double windows, it reduces the indoor temperature enough to paralyze
the floating disease germs. The penetrative force of a polar night frost
exercises that function with such resistless vigor that it defies the
preventive measures of human skill; and all Arctic travelers agree that
among the natives of Iceland, Greenland, and Labrador pulmonary diseases
are actually unknown. Protracted cold weather thus prevents epidemic
catarrhs, but during the first thaw Nature succumbs to art: smoldering
stove fires add their fumes to the effluvia of the dormitory, tight-
fitting doors and windows exclude the means of salvation; superstition
triumphs; the lung poison operates, and the next morning a snuffling,
coughing, and red-nosed family discuss the cause of their affliction….It
is a mistake to suppose that "colds" can be propagated only by direct
transmission or the breathing of recently Vitiated air. Catarrh germs,
floating in the atmosphere of an ill-ventilated bedroom, may preserve
their vitality for weeks after the house has been abandoned; and the next
renter of such a place should not move in till wide-open windows and doors
and a thorough draught of several days have removed every trace of a
"musty" smell.—DR. FELIX L. OSWALD, Remedies of Nature, Popular
Science Monthly, March, 1884.
CATCHING COLD.—The phrase "to catch cold," so often in the mouths of
physicians and patients, is a curious solecism. It implies that the term
"cold" denotes something positive—a sort of demon which does not catch,
but is caught by the unfortunate victims….If most persons outside of the
medical profession were to be asked what they consider as chiefly to be
avoided in the management of sick people, the answer would probably be
"catching cold." I suspect that this question would be answered in the
same way by not a few physicians. Hence it is that sick rooms are poorly
ventilated, and patients are oppressed by a superabundance of garments and
bedclothes. The air which patients are made to breathe, having been
already breathed and rebreathed, is loaded with pulmonary exhalations.
Cutaneous emanations are allowed to remain in contact with the body, as
well as to pervade the atmosphere. Patients not confined to the bed,
especially those affected with pulmonary disease, are overloaded with
clothing, which becomes saturated with perspiration, and is seldom
changed, for fear of the dreaded "cold."…
A reform is greatly needed in respect to "catching cold." Few diseases are
referable to the agency of cold, and even the affection commonly called a
cold is generally caused by other agencies, or, perhaps, by a special
agent, which may prove to be a microbe. Let the axiom, A fever patient
never catches cold, be reiterated until it becomes a household phrase.
Let the restorative influence of cool, fresh, pure atmosphere be
inculcated. Let it be understood that in therapeutics, as in hygiene, the
single word comfort embodies the principles which should regulate
coverings and clothing.—AUSTIN FLINT, M.D., in a Lecture printed in
The New York Medical Journal.
DIGESTION AND FOOD.
THE WATER WE DRINK (p. l55).—Qualities of Pure Water.—"A good
drinking water," says Dr. Simpson (in The Water We Drink), "should
possess the following physical characters: it should be entirely free from
color, taste, or odor; it should, moreover, be cool, well aerated, soft,
bright, and entirely free from all deposit. But it should be remembered
that a water having all these characteristics may yet be more or less
polluted by organic matter, owing to the proximity of drains and
sewers….Disease has frequently been traced to the use of perfectly
bright and clear water, where there was no sediment, and where the animal
organic matter was held in a state of solution."
In the case of diseases, such as typhoid, which attack the stomach,
disease germs are removed along with the excreta; and if, as is often the
case, the drainage of an infected town flows into a river, and that river
is used in some after portion of its course as a water supply, there is
great danger of such diseases being communicated. For, however well the
water may be purified and filtered, we have no guarantee that it will not
contain some of these disease germs, which are so small that they pass
through the finest filters. It is in this way that almost all the great
cholera and typhoid epidemics have spread.—Chambers's Journal.
Well Water Often Dangerous.—A densely crowded population soon
impregnates the soil to some depth with filth, which drains into the water
course below, especially if such water is near the surface. This surface
water easily penetrates a loosely walled well. Every well, therefore,
should not only be widely separated from barnyards, cesspools, pens,
sinks, and similar places, but should be made water-tight with cement, so
that nothing can reach its interior except water that has been filtered
through dense beds of unpolluted ground below. If these precautions are
neglected, the best and deepest well may become continually contaminated
by infiltration from the surrounding surface. This impure water, even when
not used for family drinking, is sometimes supplied to cows, or used for
washing dairy pans, or employed in diluting milk for the market, and there
are many known cases in which disease has thus been disseminated. Thus, an
epidemic of typhoid fever in Cambridge, Mass., was definitely traced to a
dairy which supplied the victims with milk. Upon investigation it was
found that a short time before there had been a typhoid patient in the
farmhouse, and that the well from which water was taken to wash the milk
pans had become contaminated with the specific poison brought into it from
the surrounding drainage.
All suspected water should be thoroughly boiled before using it to drink.
Some physicians insist that the boiling should continue for one or two
hours in order entirely to destroy the bacterial germs. The heaviness and
insipidity incident to boiled water may be somewhat relieved by afterward
filtering it. Filtering, of itself, however, will do little toward ridding
the water of microbes, which are much too minute to be arrested by the
ordinary apparatus.—When journeying, where one must often take a hasty
meal at a railway station, drink hot water in preference to cold. A
convenient portable filter may be arranged with a bottle of powdered
charcoal, and a piece of filtering paper. A traveler by briskly stirring a
tablespoonful of the charcoal into a pint of water, allowing it to stand
five or ten minutes, and then filtering it through the paper, may venture
to relieve his thirst in almost any part of the country.
Water an Absorbent of Foul Gases.—If a pitcher of water be left
uncovered in an occupied apartment for only a few hours, it will become
foul from the absorption of the respired and perspired gases in the room.
The colder the water, the greater the capacity to contain these gases.
Water kept in a room over night is therefore unfit for drinking, and
should not be used even to brush the teeth or to gargle in the throat.
Impure Ice, a Breeder of Disease.—We generally take the purity of
our ice for granted, and, like the alligator in the bayou, close our
mouths and swallow it. In the country, I have seen during the ice-
harvesting season, wagon after wagon passing me on the road, laden with
ice that had been collected from canals, rivers, and streams receiving
sewerage, and from ponds that are in the summer time reeking with slime,
and often offensive from the quantity of decomposed vegetable and animal
matter brought in by the washing from the meadow. These streams would be
shunned as a source of water supply.
Should you interview a native regarding the slimy mud puddle before you,
called Mr. So-and-so's private "ice pond," he would say that "in winter it
is much better, and when frozen, you know, it makes fine ice," presenting
that popular though ignorant belief that while in the act of
crystallizing, water rids itself of all its injurious qualities, however
offensive it may be in its liquid state. Unfortunately, there is enough
truth in the current idea of the elimination of noxious and foreign matter
during the process of freezing to give color to the popular belief, but
not enough to make it a safe reliance; therefore all means should be used
to enlighten the public regarding this subject. Experiment has shown that
freezing produces little change or effect in overcoming the poisonous
influences, and ice has often served as a vehicle to convey the germs of
typhoid and other low forms of fever. Pure ice can be procured only from
water free from impurities, and ice for domestic or surgical purposes
should never be collected from ponds or streams which contain animal or
vegetable refuse, or stagnant and muddy material.—Journal of
Reconstructives, Oct., 1887.
THE GLANDULAR COAT OF THE STOMACH, AND HOW IT WEEPS (p. l62).—While the
food is thus being continually moved about, it is at the same time
subjected to the action of the chemical sac. This is, as we have said, a
glandular sac. It is of some thickness, and is made of little glands bound
up together with that stringy fibrous packing material which anatomists
call connective tissue.
If we were to imagine many gross of small India-rubber vials all placed
side by side, and bound together with hay or straw into a great mat, and
the mat rolled up into a sac, with all the mouths of the vials turned
inward, we should have a large and coarse, but tolerably fair image of the
glandular coat of the stomach. Each vial would then represent one of the
glands of this coat, one of the gastric or peptic glands, as they are
called. Each gland, however, is not always a simple tube, but is often
branched at the bottom end, and all of them are lined, except just at
their mouths, with large rounded bodies, which not unfrequently almost
choke up their cavity.
FIG. 72.
[Illustration: BRANCHED GASTRIC GLAND a. The peptic cells. b.
The inert cells.]
The rounded masses, or cells, as they are called, in the interior of each
gland, form the really active part of the apparatus. Each cell is a little
laboratory, which concocts out of the material brought to it or near it by
the blood a certain potent, biting fluid, and is hence called a peptic or
digestive cell. Each cell is born at the bottom of the tube, and in
process of time travels upward toward the mouth. When it reaches the
mouth, it bursts, and pours into the stomach the fluid it has elaborated,
or perhaps may give it out without bursting, while it is still within its
tube.
In those cases in which it has been possible to look in upon the stomach
while at work (as in the famous case of Alexis St. Martin), and where the
orifices of the tiny glands (for though we have compared them to bottles,
they are exceedingly small) appear like little dots, tears were seen to
start at the mouths of the glands, gather into drops, and finally trickle
down into the lowest part of the stomach. The stomach, as it were, weeps,
and indeed the weeping of tears is just such another effect of glandular
activity—only ordinary tears form a mild and, chemically speaking,
impotent fluid; while the fluid which the tears of the stomach weep—the
gastric juice—is a sharp, piercing water of excessive chemical
power.—Hinton.
POISONOUS MILK, CHEESE, AND ICE CREAM (p. l69).—In late years there have
been many cases of poisoning by ice cream, cheese, and milk. The poisonous
principle sometimes developed in these articles of food has been made a
subject of special investigation, and it has been found to be due to
natural causes. Dr. Vaughan, of Michigan, after spending several months in
experimenting upon samples of twelve different cheeses, which had caused
three hundred cases of poisoning, finally succeeded in isolating certain
poison crystals, which he calls Tyrotoxicon. He says: "A few drops
of an aqueous solution of these crystals placed upon the tongue produces
all the symptoms observed in those who had been made sick by eating of the
cheese. This was tried repeatedly upon myself, and upon some of my
students who kindly offered themselves for experimentation." Dr. Vaughan
afterward procured the poison crystals from milk which had stood some
months in a closed bottle, and also from a sample of ice cream by which
eighteen persons had been made ill. It was learned in the latter case that
the custard, of which the ice cream was made, had been allowed to stand in
a foul atmosphere for two hours before it was frozen. By placing small
bits of this poisonous cream in good milk, and allowing it to stand
twenty-four hours, the whole became vitiated. This proved that the poison
is due to the growth of some ferment. In the autumn of 1886, many persons
in different hotels at Long Branch were poisoned by milk obtained from a
certain milkman. In this case it was found that the cows were milked at
noon, the warm milk being immediately placed in cans and carted eight
miles during the warmest part of the day, in a very hot month. In June,
1887, nineteen persons in New York city were similarly poisoned by milk
which also came from one dairy. Many of these persons had narrow escapes
from death. These, and many other like instances, teach us the importance
of the greatest care in every detail of milk handling. A little dried milk
formed along the seam of a tin pail, or any similar lodging place, may be
the starting point of poison generation. A month after his first
experiments with the ice cream mentioned above, Dr. Vaughan put small
pieces of the dried custard in pans of milk, and afterward made custard
from this milk. This yielded tyrotoxicon as before, showing the tenacious
vitality of the poison, and also explaining the fact that the precise
cause of poisoning is in many cases so difficult to trace.
FISH AS FOOD (p. 169).—It is not desirable that fish should be the sole
kind of nitrogenous food eaten by any nation; and even if milk and eggs be
added thereto, the vigor of such a people will not be equal to that of
flesh-eating nations. At the same time, the value of fish as a part of a
dietary is indicated by the larger proportion of phosphorus which it
contains, and which renders it especially fitted for the use of those who
perform much brain work, or who are the victims of much anxiety and
distress.—EDWARD SMITH, in "Foods."
For the mentally exhausted, the worried, the "nervous," and the distressed
in mind, fish is not simply a food; it acts as physic. The brain is
nourished by it, the "nerves"—to use the term in its popular sense—are
"quieted"; the mind grows stronger, the temper less irritable, and the
whole being healthier and happier when fish is substituted for butcher's
meat….I find persons who are greatly excited, even to the extent of
seeking to do violence to themselves or to those around them, who can not
sleep, and who are in an agony of irritability, become composed and
contented when fed almost exclusively on fish. In such cases I have
withdrawn butter, milk, eggs, and all the varieties of warm-blooded animal
food; and, carefully noting the weight and strength, I find no diminution
of either, while fish is supplied in such quantities as fully to satisfy
the appetite.—J. MORTIMER GRANVILLE, M.D., "Fish as Food and
Physic."
COFFEE AND TEA (p. 170).—Besides the alkaloid Caffeine which
coffee contains, it also develops, in roasting, a volatile oil called
Caffeone, to which is due its characteristic aroma. The main effects of
coffee are due to both the caffeine and the caffeone, which are
antagonistic, though not contemporaneous, in action. The volatile oil
reduces arterial tension, allows a brisker flow of blood, and so increases
the rapidity of the heart's action. It also acts upon the brain, and
intellectual faculties in general; keeps one awake, and his mind clear.
Caffeine, on the other hand, like digitalis, produces a high arterial
tension, and slows the heart beat. It exerts its chief effect upon the
spinal cord, to which, like strychnia, it is an excitant. The shaking hand
of the inveterate coffee drinker is caused by caffeine. Thus a cup of
coffee produces on the drinker a double effect,—of the oil and the
alkaloid; the former sooner and transient, the latter later and
lasting….Coffee is not in itself nutritious to any marked degree; but it
saves food, and also maintains life, by its exhilarating effect upon the
nervous system. It is an excellent antidote to opium, producing the
wakefulness that antagonizes the narcotic sleep of the drug; is now and
then curative of sick headache, and is one of the standard remedies for
certain forms of nausea.
To the chemist, Tea is much the same thing as coffee. It contains
considerably more tannin, a volatile oil, and an alkaloid (theine)
indistinguishable from caffeine. That the injurious effects of overdoses
are due as much to the volatile oil as to the alkaloid, is shown by the
fact that tea packers are made ill by long breathing of air filled with
it, and that tea tasters in China, who avoid swallowing the infusion, can
endure their trade but a few years, and leave the country with shattered
nerves.
Probably every one numbers among his friends women who are actual slaves
of the tea habit, and who would find tea as hard to forsake as men find
tobacco. It is not unlikely that the functional cardiac disorder, often
spoken of as the "tobacco heart," due to nervous derangement, and
accompanied by palpitation and pain in the cardiac region, is more often
due to tea than tobacco. In fact, the disorders induced by excessive tea
drinking have been grasped as a special disease, to which has been given
the name of Theism. This includes a train of symptoms, usually
progressive, loss of appetite, pain after meals, headache, constipation,
palpitation, cardiac distress, hysterical manifestations, dizziness, and
paresis.—DR. MAURICE D. CLARKE, Popular Science News.
Tea drinkers, as a rule, express doubts as regards the correctness of
alleged poisonous properties of tea. Numerous instances of individuals of
this class have been noticed who were themselves suffering from tea
poisoning. Their nerves were in a deplorably abnormal condition, the heart
and brain were functionally disturbed, and the sleep less in quantity and
less refreshing than it should be….One's opinion of the physical
disturbances which may be caused by rum, tobacco, or tea, are not worth
much, when the opinion comes from a victim of the excessive use of these
agents.
The tannin found in tea does not differ from that found in oak and other
barks which the tanners use to convert the raw hides of animals into
leather. It is a powerful astringent, which accounts for some of the
peculiar physical evils to which confirmed tea drinkers are subject.
Theine does not differ essentially from Cocaine (see p.
223). They both produce exaltation of the nervous system and increased
powers of physical endurance. The brain is largely influenced in its
functions, and long periods of wakefulness are induced. Continued use of
strong infusions of either coca or tea result in great disturbance of
nervous centers and functional offices, and either will produce fatal
results by persistent use of inordinate quantities.
A cup of tea as served at tea tables contains usually only a trace of the
alkaloidal principle, but infinitesimal quantities are capable of exerting
baneful effects upon some tea drinkers….Poisons act in a variety of
ways, some slowly, and without producing pain; others act violently, and
with speedy, fatal results. Inasmuch as we do not observe a very large
number of clearly proved cases of acute poisoning by tea, we must conclude
that it is characteristically a slow poison, and also that its influence
is unlike in different individuals….Four or six cups of tea, however,
taken during each twenty-four hours, will in time produce tea poisoning,
and greater or less evil effects.
Tea is well enough, when its use is kept under absolute, intelligent
control; but if it becomes master in any case, then it must be promptly
abandoned, for danger attends the intemperate tea drinker every hour of
his life. Those advanced in life crave its stimulating effects, and it is
well for them to use it in moderation; but the young should abstain from
it entirely.—Abridged from "Tea Poisoning," by DR. NICHOLS, in
Popular Science News, December, 1887.
CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF INDIGESTION (p. l72).—When a light breakfast is
eaten, a solid meal is requisite in the middle of the day. If the
digestive organs are left too long unemployed, they secrete an excess of
mucus, which greatly interferes with their normal functions. One meal has
a direct influence on the next; and a poor breakfast leaves the stomach
over-active for dinner. This is the secret of much excess in eating. The
point to bear in mind is that not to eat a sufficiency at one meal makes
you too hungry for the next; and that when you are too hungry, you are apt
to overload the stomach, and to give the gastric juices more to do than
they have the power to perform.
To eat too often, and to eat irregularly, are other sources of
indigestion. People who dine at uncertain hours, and eat one meal too
quickly on the last, must expect the stomach to retaliate in the long run.
A very fruitful cause of dyspepsia is imperfect mastication. We remember
one old gentleman who used always to warn young people on this point by
saying: "Remember you have no teeth in your stomach." Nervous people
nearly always eat fast, and as nearly always are the victims of nervous
irritability, produced by dyspepsia….To sit much in a stooping posture
interferes with the stomach's action. Well-marked dyspepsia has been
traced to sitting immediately after dinner in a low armchair, so that the
body was curved forward, and the stomach compressed….
The skin, core, and kernels of fruit should be avoided. Some people are
not able to digest raw apples; and dyspepsia has been sometimes greatly
aggravated by eating pears. The latter fruit, in its ripest state,
contains an abundance of gritty material, which, as it can not be
separated in the mouth, on being swallowed irritates the mucous
membrane….
Of food itself, bear in mind that hot meat is more digestible than cold;
the flesh of full-grown animals than that of young ones; that land birds
are more digestible than waterfowl; wild animals than domestic ones; and
that in game, newly killed birds are easier of digestion than those which
have been kept a long time.—Hints to Dyspeptics, Chambers's
Journal.
HOW FOOD DEVELOPS ENERGY (p. 173).—It may appear strange that the small
amount of food we eat should suffice to carry our large and bulky bodies
through all the varied movement of the day. But this difficulty disappears
at once, when we recollect how large an amount of dormant energy can be
laid by in a very small piece of matter. A lump of coal no bigger than
one's fist, if judiciously employed, will suffice to keep a small toy
engine at work for a considerable time. Now, our food is matter containing
large amounts of dormant energy, and our bodies are engines so constructed
as to utilize all the energy to the best advantage. A single gramme of
beef fat if completely burned (that is, if every atom unites with oxygen),
is capable of developing more than 9,000 heat units; and each heat unit,
if employed to perform mechanical work, is capable of lifting a weight of
one gramme to a height of 424 meters; or, what comes to the same thing,
424 grammes to a height of one meter. Accordingly, the energy contained in
one gramme of beef, and the oxygen with which it unites, would be
sufficient to raise the little bit of fat itself to a height of 3,816
kilometers, or almost as high as the distance from London to New York.—
GRANT ALLEN in "Why do we Eat our Dinner?"
Danger of Too High Pressure.—A prudent fire engineer, when his
water hose is old and weak, would not try to force as much water as he
could into it. No; to prevent a rupture he would work it at a low
pressure. But men seldom think of carrying out the same simple mechanical
principle when there is reason to believe that the vessels of the brain
are getting weak and brittle. They eat and drink just as much as they feel
inclined to, and sometimes a little more. With a good digestion, nearly
all they consume is converted into blood, to the yet further distention of
vessels already over-distended. This high-pressure style of living
produces high-pressure results. Its effects were painfully illustrated by
the death of Charles Dickens. The brain work he performed was immense; he
lived generously, taking his wine as he did his meat, with a liberal hand.
He disregarded the signs of structural decay, forcing his reluctant brain
to do what it had once done with spontaneous ease, until all at once,
under a greater tension than ordinary, a weak vessel gave way, flooding
the brain with blood.—J. R. BLACK, M.D., in "Apoplexy," Popular
Science Monthly, April, 1875.
Evils of Gluttony.—"Is it not strange," says Dr. Hunt, "how
people, even the most considerate, will trifle with their stomachs? Many a
person seems to prefer taking medicine to avoiding it by a proper
regulation of the appetite. You may stuff the stomach to the full, year
after year, but as sure as effects follow causes, so sure will you reap
the accumulating penalty." A physician of extensive practice declares that
he has never lived through a Christmas or Thanksgiving without frequently
being consulted for ailments produced by excessive eating. He says: "It
would seem as if multitudes thought they had a gluttonous license once a
year, and that the most appropriate method of expressing gratitude, was by
stuffing the stomach. Excessive eating produces scrofula. Surfeiting
among children results in mental stupidity and unmanageable temper….I am
acquainted with a family, in which about the average amount of stuffing is
indulged. To my expostulations, the mother has replied: "I may not be able
to give my children as much education as some folks, and I may not be able
to give them any property, but as long as we can get it, they shall have
what they want to eat. I have spoken of their black teeth, bad breath,
eruptions, and frequent sickness. "Yes," she has replied, "I know all
that, but would you have me stop them before their appetites are half
satisfied, and tell them, 'there, that is all you can have'? No; as long
as I can get it, my children shall have enough to eat; it never shall be
said that I have starved them." This indulgence of children to the full
extent of their undiscriminating appetites is extreme folly and genuine
unkindness. Pampered with a variety of dishes, they eat enormously, which
engenders a craving for another large meal, and so on—their youthful and
elastic constitutions enabling them to bear the excess without immediate
serious injury. Let them be confined to one or two plain dishes at a meal,
and the quantity be determined for them; it will then be found that a
growing child does not need to be stuffed, and that his appetite will soon
become reasonable; and if the food be plain, and mostly or entirely
vegetable, it will soon be observed that the child's teeth are whiter, its
breath sweeter, its skin clearer, its tongue cleaner, its eyes brighter,
its sleep quieter, its brains sharper, and its temper more amiable. There
are few changes in the management of children which would prove so
beneficial as that from the present mode of cramming with a multitude of
rich foods, to a plain vegetable diet, eaten in regular and moderate
quantities.—DIO LEWIS, in Weak Lungs, and How to Make them Strong.
REGULAR PHYSICAL HABITS (p. 177).—Constipation lies at the root of a host
of chronic ailments, which seem especially to beset American women.
Impaired blood, nervous excitability, sick headaches, mental depression,
sleeplessness, and a long train of untold sufferings may be directly
traced to this physical sin. We say sin, for in the large majority
of instances this habit may be prevented; or, if already formed, may, by
proper attention, be cured. The principal causes which lead to this
deplorable state of the system are:
1. Errors in Food.
2. Errors in Exercise.
3. Inattention to Nature's laws.
Errors in Food have much to do with the evil in question. Our diet
is, in general, too concentrated. We indulge ourselves with animal food
two or three times a day, accompanying it with spices, condiments, greasy
gravies, fine wheat bread, and a sparse amount of vegetables. We wind up
our dinners with rich and heavy pastry, and our luncheons or our suppers
with sugared sweetmeats and that indigestible compound often offered under
the name of cake. A few cups of strong tea intensify the error. Coffee has
a less astringent effect, and therefore can not be so severely arraigned
for this particular consequence. When we think what delicious meals can be
enjoyed from any of the cereals, well cooked, and taken with milk or
cream, bread from unbolted flour, plenty of unsugared fruit, and pure rain
or spring water, filtered and cooled or taken hot, with or without milk,
we wonder that so many people consent day after day to use greasy pork,
fried steaks, fried potatoes, hot biscuit, and in many cases poorly made
coffee and tea. These are the people who make up the grand army of sallow-
faced sufferers upon which the venders of patent pills and nauseous
compounds thrive.
A wise mother will not allow mere culinary convenience to take precedence
of the requirements of health. She will study the peculiar physical needs
of each one of her children, that she may provide for each the food best
suited to his or her constitution. This is not a difficult matter. "Water,
not only by itself, but in some of its combinations," says Dr. Oswald, "is
an effective aperient; in watermelons, and whey, for instance, but still
more in conjunction with a dish of peas, or beans. No constipation can
long withstand the suasion of a dose of pea soup, or baked beans, flavored
with a modicum of brown butter, and glorified with a cup of cold spring
water. Moreover, the aperient effect thus produced is not followed by an
astringent reaction, as in the case of drugs,—the cure, once effected, is
permanent."
Errors in Exercise may lie in two directions, and overexertion,
viz., exercise carried to the point of nervous exhaustion, is as
mischievous in its effect as is the other extreme. A too long walk, for
instance, may cause the very evil it is intended to cure.
As a rule, however, sedentary habits are chargeable with the greater share
of influence in this unhappy state of the system. Light gymnastics within
doors, a brisk walk or horseback ride without, both taken in garments
suspended from the shoulders, and devoid of all constriction so that the
abdominal viscera can partake in the general movement of the body, are
advisable. For invalids or those incapacitated for active exercise,
friction or massage treatment daily, including a vigorous kneading of the
abdomen, or a relaxation of the entire muscles of the body with especial
thought directed to the desired result, are often of great service.
Inattention to Physical Laws is perhaps the prime culprit. Nature
always inclines to regularity, and when we do not respect her dictates, we
invite the retribution which, sooner or later, she invariably inflicts.
The elimination of waste from the system is an imperative necessity, and
whenever it is thwarted, evil must and will follow. Aside from the
avoidance of positive discomforts, suffering, and disease, there is the
not unimportant consideration of bodily elasticity and a fine complexion.
Let every young woman who would possess and retain a fair, delicate
complexion, remember that the most important factor in its formation and
retention is a clean system.
Proper diet, plenty of fruits, plenty of wholesome drink, enough exercise
to send the blood pleasurably bounding through the veins, followed up and
enforced by prompt recognition of the immutable laws of Health in this as
well as all other organic functions, will soon work a reform that could
not be so successfully effected by all the drugs in Christendom.—E. B. S.
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.
EFFECT OF VIOLENT PASSIONS UPON HEALTH (p. 202).—The man who is given to
outbursts of anger is sure to experience a rapid change of the physical
organs, in case he does not die in a fit of rage.
Death under such circumstances is of frequent occurrence. Sylla,
Valentinian, Nerva, Wenceslas, and Isabeau of Bavaria, all died in
consequence of an access of passion. The medical annals of our own time
recount many instances of fatal effects following the violent brain
disturbance caused by anger. The symptoms usually are pulmonary and
cerebral congestions. Still such fatal accidents as these are exceptional;
as a rule, the passions of hate and anger deteriorate the constitution by
slow, but sure degrees.
How, then, do we explain those morbid phenomena which have their origin in
misplaced affection, in disappointed ambition, in hatred, or in anger, and
which culminate either in serious chronic maladies, or in death or
suicide? They all seem to start from an impairment of the cerebro-spinal
centers. The continual excitation of these by ever-present emotions
determines a paralysis of the central nerve substance, and thus affects
its connections with the nerves extending out to the various organs. These
nerves next degenerate by degrees, and soon the great functions are
compromised. The heart and the lungs cease to act with their normal
rhythm, the circulation grows irregular and languishing. Appetite
disappears, the amount of carbonic acid exhaled decreases, and the hair
grows white, owing to the interruption of the pigmentary secretion. This
general disturbance in nutrition and secretion is attended with a fall of
the body's temperature and anæmia. The flesh dries up and the organism
becomes less and less capable of resisting morbific influences. At the
same time, in consequence of the reaction of all these disturbances on the
brain, the psychic faculties become dull or perverted, and the patient
falls into a decline more or less complicated and aggravated by grave
symptoms. Under these conditions he dies or makes away with himself.
Two organs, the stomach and the liver, are often affected in a peculiar
and characteristic way in the course of this pathological evolution. The
modifications produced in the innervation, under the influence of cephalic
excitement, cause a disturbance of the blood circulation in the liver.
This disturbance is of such a nature that the bile, now secreted in larger
quantity, is resorbed into the blood instead of passing into the biliary
vesicle. Then appears what we call jaundice. The skin becomes pale, then
yellow, owing to the presence in the blood of the coloring matter of the
bile. This change in the liver is usually developed slowly: sometimes,
however, jaundice makes its appearance suddenly. Villeneuve mentions the
case of two youths who brought a discussion to an end by grasping their
swords; suddenly one of them turned yellow, and the other, alarmed at this
transformation, dropped his weapon. The same author speaks of a priest who
became jaundiced on seeing a mad dog jump at him. Whatever may be said of
these cases, we must reckon painful affections of the soul among the
efficient causes of chronic diseases of the liver.
The digestion, says the author of a work published some years ago, is
completely subjected to the influence of the moral and intellectual state.
When the brain is wearied by the passions, appetite and digestion are
almost gone….There is nowhere perfect health, save when the passions are
well regulated, harmonized, and equipoised. Moral temperance is as
indispensable to a calm and tranquil life as physiological
temperance….If it is your desire that your circulatory, respiratory, and
digestive functions should be discharged properly, normally, if you want
your appetite to be good, your sleep sound, your humor equable, avoid all
emotions that are overstrong, all pleasures that are too intense, and meet
the inevitable sorrows and the cruel agonies of life with a firm and
resigned soul. Ever have some occupation to employ and divert your mind,
and to make it proof against the temptations of want or of desire. Thus
will you attain the term of life without overmuch disquiet and
affliction.—FERNAND PAPILLON, in the Revue des Deux Mondes.
BRAIN WORK, OVERWORK, AND WORRY (p. 205).—Overstimulation of the Brain
in Childhood.—Most civilized communities have enacted laws against
the employment of children in severe physical labor. This is well enough,
for the muscles of young persons are tender and weak, and not, therefore,
adapted to the work to which cupidity or ignorance would otherwise subject
them. But no such fostering care does the State take of the brains of the
young. There are no laws to prevent the undeveloped nervous system being
overtasked and brought to disease, or even absolute destruction. Every
physician sees cases of the kind, and wonders how parents of intelligence
can be so blind to the welfare of their offspring as to force, or even to
allow, their brains to be worked to a degree that, in many cases, results
in idiocy or death. Only a few months ago I saw for the first time a boy
of five years of age, with a large head, a prominent forehead, and all the
other signs of mental precocity. He had read the first volume of Bryant's
"History of the United States," and was preparing to tackle the other
volumes! He read the magazines of the day with as much interest as did his
father, and conversed with equal facility on the politics of the period.
But a few weeks before I saw him he had begun to walk in his sleep, then
chorea had made its appearance, and on the day before he was brought to me
he had had a well-marked epileptic paroxysm. Already his mind is weakened
—perhaps permanently so. Such cases are not isolated ones. They are
continually occurring.
The period of early childhood—say up to seven or eight years of age—is
that during which the brain and other parts of the nervous system are most
actively developing, in order to fit them for the great work before them.
It is safe to say that the only instruction given during this time should
be that which consists in teaching children how to observe. The perceptive
faculties alone should be made the subjects of systematic attempts at
development. The child should be taught how to use his senses, and
especially how to see, hear, and touch. In this manner, knowledge would be
acquired in the way that is preeminently the natural way, and ample food
would be furnished for the child's reflective powers.—DK. WM. A. HAMMOND,
Popular Science Monthly, November, 1884.
Reserve Force.—The part which "a stock of energy" plays in brain
work can scarcely be exaggerated. Reserves are of high moment everywhere
in the animal economy, and the reserve of mental force is in a practical
sense more important than any other….Without this reserve, healthy brain
work is impossible. Pain, hunger, anxiety, and a sense of mind weariness,
are warning tokens of exhaustion. When the laborious worker, overcome with
fatigue, "rouses" himself with alcohol, coffee, tea, or any other agent
which may chance to suit him, he does not add a unit of force to his stock
of energy; he simply narcotizes the sense of weariness, and, the guard
being drugged, he appropriates the reserve….Meanwhile, the effort to
work becomes daily more laborious, the task of fixing the attention grows
increasingly difficult, thoughts wander, memory fails, the reasoning power
is enfeebled; physical nerve or brain disturbance may supervene, and the
crash will then come suddenly, unexpected by on-lookers, perhaps
unperceived by the sufferer himself.
Overwork and Worry.—The miseries of "overwork," pure and simple,
are few and comparatively insignificant….The natural safeguards are so
well fitted for their task that neither body nor mind is exposed to the
peril of serious exhaustion so long as their functions are duly performed.
Overwork is impossible so long as the effort made is natural….There
is then no excuse for idleness in the pretense of possible injury. If
insane asylums were searched for the victims of "overwork," they would
nearly all be found to have fallen a prey to "worry," or to the degeneracy
which results from lack of purpose in life, and of steady employment
….The cause or condition which most commonly exposes the reserve of
mental energy to loss and injury is worry. When a strong and active mind
breaks down suddenly in the midst of business, it is usually worn out by
this cause rather than by the other….Work in the teeth of worry is
fraught with peril. The unhappy victim is ever on the verge of a
catastrophe; if he escape, the marvel is not at his strength of intellect
so much as at his good fortune. Worry is disorder, however induced, and
disorderly work is abhorred by the laws of nature, which leave it wholly
without remedy.
The pernicious system of Cram slays its thousands, because
uneducated, undeveloped, inelastic intellects are burdened and strained
with information adroitly deposited in the memory,—as an expert valet
packs a portmanteau, with the articles likely to be first wanted on the
top. Desultory occupation, mere play with objects of which the true
interest is not appreciated, ruins a still larger number. But
worry, that bane of brain work and mental energy, counts its
victims by tens of thousands.—DR. J. MORTIMER GRANVILLE, in "Worry,"
Nineteenth Century.
SLEEP (p. 206).—Some Curiosities of Sleep.—One of the most
refined and exquisite methods of torture is long continued deprivation of
sleep. The demand for unconscious rest is so imperious that nature will
accommodate itself to the most unfavorable surrounding conditions. Thus,
in forced marches, regiments have been known to sleep while walking; men
have slept soundly in the saddle; and persons will sometimes sleep during
the din of battle. It is remarkable how noises to which we have been
accustomed will fail to disturb our natural rest. Those who have been long
habituated to the endless noise of a crowded city frequently find
difficulty in sleeping in the oppressive stillness of the country.
Prolonged exposure to intense cold induces excessive somnolence, and if
this be induced, the sleep passes into stupor, the power of resistance to
cold becomes rapidly diminished, and death is the inevitable result.
Intense heat often produces drowsiness, but, as is well known, is not
favorable to natural sleep….It is difficult to determine with exactness
the phenomena of sleep that are absolutely physiological, and to separate
those that are slightly abnormal. We can not assert, for example, that a
dreamless sleep is the only normal condition of repose of the system; nor
can we determine what dreams are due to previous trains of thought, or to
such impressions from the external world received during sleep as are
purely physiological, and what are due to abnormal nervous influence,
disordered digestion, etc.
The most remarkable experiments upon the production of dreams of a
definite character, by subjecting a person during sleep to peculiar
influences, are those of Maury. The hallucinations produced in this way
are called hypnagogic (from its derivation this term is properly applied
only to phenomena observed at the instant when we fall asleep, or when we
are imperfectly awakened, and not to the period of most perfect repose),
and they occur when the subject is not in a condition favorable to sound
sleep.
The experiments made by Maury upon himself are so curious and interesting
that we quote the most striking of them in full.
First Observation.—I am tickled with a feather successively on the
lips and inside of the nostrils. I dream that I am subjected to a horrible
punishment, that a mask of pitch is applied to my face, and then roughly
torn off, tearing the skin of the lip, the nose, and the face.
Second Observation.—A pair of pincers is held at a little distance
from my ear, and rubbed with steel scissors. I dream that I hear the
ringing of bells; this soon becomes a tocsin, and I imagine myself in the
days of June, 1848. (The time of the French Revolution.)
Third Observation.—I am caused to inhale Cologne water. I dream I
am in a perfumer's shop; the idea of perfumes doubtless awakens the idea
of the East; I am in Cairo, in the shop of Jean Farina….
Fifth Observation.—I am slightly pinched on the nape of the neck.
I dream that a blister is applied, which recalls to my mind a physician
who had treated me in infancy.
Seventh Observation….The words Azar, Castor, Leonore, were
pronounced in my ear; on awaking I recollected that I had heard the last
two words, which I attributed to one of the persons who had conversed with
me in my dream.—FLINT'S Physiology of Man.
The transition stage between the dream simple and the dream acted is
witnessed in the spasmodic movements which a vivid dream produces in the
limbs or person of the sleeper. The dreamer engages in a fierce struggle,
and twitchings of his legs and arms indicate the feeble response of body
to the promptings of mind removed from its wonted power over the frame.
Even the dog, as he sleeps, apparently dreams of the chase, and gives vent
to his sensations by the short, sharp bark, or sniffs the air, and starts
in his slumber as if in response to the activity with which, in his
dreaming, he is hurrying along after the object of pursuit….Persons have
been known to swim for a considerable time in the somnambulistic state
without waking at the termination of their journey; others have safely
descended the shaft of a mine, while some have ascended steep cliffs, and
have returned home in safety during a prolonged sleep vigil. (See p.
204.)—DR. ANDREW WILSON, F.R.S.E., What Dreams are Made of.
Sleep and Conscience.—Edward Everett Hale says: Never go to bed in
any danger of being hungry. People are kept awake by hunger quite as much
as by a bad conscience. Remembering that sleep is the essential force
which starts the whole system, decline tea or coffee within the last six
hours before going to bed. Avoid all mathematics or intricate study of any
sort in the last six hours. This is the stuff dreams are made of, and hot
heads, and the nuisances of waking hours. Keep your conscience clear.
Remember that because the work of life is infinite, you can not do the
whole of it in any limited period of time, and that therefore you may just
as well leave off in one place as another.
The Art of Rising Early.—The proper time to rise is when sleep
ends. Dozing should not be allowed. True sleep is the aggregate of sleeps,
or is a state consisting in the sleeping or rest of all the several parts
of the organism. Sometimes one and at other times another part of the
body, as a whole, may be the least fatigued, and so the first to awake; or
the most exhausted, and therefore the most difficult to arouse. The secret
of good sleep is, the physiological conditions of rest being established,
so to work and weary the several parts of the organism as to give them a
proportionately equal need of rest at the same moment. To wake early, and
feel ready to rise, a fair and equal start of the sleepers should be
secured; and the wise self-manager should not allow a drowsy feeling of
unconsciousness, or weary senses, or an exhausted muscular system, to
beguile him into the folly of going to sleep again when once he has been
aroused. After a few days of self-discipline, the man who resolves not to
doze, that is, not to allow some sleepy part of his body to keep him in
bed after his brain has once awakened, will find himself, without knowing
why, an early riser.
INFLUENCE OF SUNLIGHT (p. 207).—Light is an essential element in
producing the grand phenomena of life, though its action is ill
understood. Where there is light there is life, and any deprivation of
this principle is rapidly followed by disease of the animal frame, and the
destruction of the mental faculties. We have proof of this in the squalor
of those whose necessities compel them to labor in places to which the
blessings of sunshine never penetrate, as in our coal mines, where men
having everything necessary for health, except light, exhibit a singularly
unhealthy appearance. The state of fatuity and wretchedness to which those
individuals have been reduced, who have been subjected for years to
incarceration in dark dungeons, may be referred to the same deprivation.—
ROBERT HUNT, Poetry of Science.
Effect of Dungeon Life.—"You can not imagine, Mr. Kennan," said a
condemned revolutionist to me in Siberia, "the misery of prolonged
confinement in a casemate of the fortress under what are known as dungeon
conditions. My casemate was sometimes cold, generally damp, and always
gloomy. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I lay there in
solitude, hearing no sound save that of the high-pitched, melancholy bells
of the fortress cathedral, which slowly chimed the quarter hours, and
which always seemed to say: 'Here thou liest—lie here still.' I had
absolutely nothing to do except to pace my cell from corner to corner, and
think. For a long time I used to talk to myself in a whisper; to repeat
softly everything in the shape of literature that I could remember, and to
compose speeches which, under certain imagined conditions, I would
deliver; but I finally ceased to have energy enough to do even this, and
used to sit for hours in a sort of stupor, in which, so far as I can now
remember, I was not conscious of thinking at all. Before the end of the
first year, I grew so weak, mentally and physically, that I began to
forget words. I knew what ideas I desired to express, but some of the
words that I needed had gone from me, and it was with the greatest
difficulty that I could recover them. It seemed sometimes as if my own
language were a strange one to me, or one which, from long disuse, I had
forgotten. I greatly feared insanity, and my apprehension was increased by
the fact that two or three of my comrades in cells on the same corridor
were either insane or subject to hallucinations; and I was often roused at
night and thrown into a violent chill of nervous excitement by their
hysterical weeping, their cries to the guard to come and take away
somebody, or something which they imagined they saw, or their groans and
entreaties when, in cases of violent delirium, they were strapped to their
beds by the gendarmes."—GEORGE KENNAN, in Russian State
Prisoners, The Century, March, 1888.
THE GROWTH AND POWER OF POISON HABITS (p. 218).—In order to distinguish a
poison stimulant from a harmless and nutritive substance, Nature has
furnished us three infallible tests:
1. The first taste of every poison is either insipid or repulsive.
2. The persistent obtrusion of the noxious substance changes that aversion
into a specific craving.
3. The more or less pleasurable excitement produced by a gratification of
that craving is always followed by a depressing reaction….
One radical fallacy identifies the stimulant habit in all its disguises:
its victims mistake a process of irritation for one of invigoration….
Sooner or later the tonic is sure to pall while the morbid craving
remains, and forces its victims either to increase the quantity of
the wonted stimulant, or else to resort to a stronger poison. A boy begins
with ginger beer and ends in ginger rum; the medical "tonic" delusion
progresses from malt extract to Mumford's Elixir; and the nicotine habit
once introduced, the alcohol habit often follows. The tendency of every
stimulant habit is toward a stronger tonic….We have found that the road
to the rum shop is paved with "mild stimulants," and that every bottle of
medical bitters is apt to get the vender a permanent customer. We have
found that cider and mild ale lead to strong ale, to lager beer, and
finally to rum, and the truth at last dawns upon us that the only safe,
consistent, and effective plan is Total Abstinence from all Poisons.
…More than the hunger after bread, more than the frenzy of love or
hatred, the poison hunger overpowers every other instinct, even the fear
of death. Dr. Isaac Jennings has illustrated this by the following
example: A clergyman of his acquaintance attempted to dissuade a young man
of great promise from habits of intemperance. "Hear me first a few words,"
said the young man, "and then you may proceed. I am sensible that an
indulgence in this habit will lead to the loss of property, the loss of
reputation and domestic happiness, to premature death, and to the
irretrievable loss of my immortal soul; and now, with all this conviction
resting firmly on my mind and flashing over my conscience like lightning,
if I still continue to drink, do you suppose anything you can say will
deter me from the practice?"
…Ignorance is a chief cause of intemperance. The seductions of vice
would not mislead so many of our young men if they could realize the
significance of their mistake. There is still a lingering belief that,
with due precaution against excess and adulteration, a dram drinker might
"get ahead" of Nature, and, as it were, trick her out of some extra
enjoyment. There is no hope of a radical reform till intelligent people
have realized the fact that this "trick" is in every instance a losing
game, entailing penalties which far outweigh the pleasures that the novice
may mistake for enjoyments. For the depression of the vital energy
increases with every repetition of the stimulating process, and in a year
after the first dose all the "grateful and exhilarating tonics" of our
professional poison venders can not restore the vigor, the courage, and
the cheerfulness which the mere consciousness of perfect health imparts to
the total abstainer. A great plurality of all beginners underrate the
difficulty of controlling the cravings of a morbid appetite. They remember
that their natural inclinations at first opposed, rather than encouraged,
the indulgence; and they feel that at the present stage of its development
they could abjure the passion without difficulty. But they overlook the
fact that the moral power of resistance decreases with each repetition of
the dose, and that the time will come when only the practical
impossibility of procuring their wonted tipple will enable them to keep
their pledge of total abstinence. It is true that, by the exercise of a
constant self-restraint, a person of great will force may resist the
progressive tendency of the poison habit and confine himself for years to
a single cigar or a single bottle of wine per day….But the attempt to
resist that bias will overtask the strength of most individuals. According
to the allegory of the Grecian myth, the car of Bacchus was drawn by
tigers; and it is a significant circumstance that war, famine, and
pestilence have so often been the forerunners of veritable alcohol
epidemics….The explanation is that, after the stimulant habit has once
been initiated, every unusual depression of mental or physical vigor calls
for an increased application of the accustomed method of relief….Nations
who are addicted to the worship of a poison god will use his temple as a
place of refuge from every calamity; and children whose petty ailments
have been palliated with narcotics, wine, and cordials, will afterward be
tempted to drown their greater sorrows in deeper draughts of the same
nepenthe.—FELIX L. OSWALD, M.D., Remedies of Nature, Popular Science
Monthly, October and November, 1883.
DANGERS FROM THE USE OF NARCOTICS.—It may seem a paradox, it is a truism,
to say that in the value of narcotics lies their peril. Because they have
such power for good, because the suffering which they alleviate is in its
lighter forms so common, because neuralgia and sleeplessness are ailments
as familiar to the present generation as gout, rheumatism, and catarrh
were to our grandfathers, therefore the medicines which immediately
relieve sleeplessness and neuralgic pain are among the most dangerous
possessions, the most subtle temptations of civilized life. Every one of
these drugs has, besides its instant and beneficial effect, other and
injurious tendencies. The relief which it gives is purchased at a certain
price; for, at each repetition of the dose, the immediate relief is
lessened or rendered uncertain, while the mischievous influence is
enhanced and aggravated; till, when the drug has become a necessity of
life it has lost the greater part, if not the whole, of its value, and
serves only to satisfy the need which itself alone has created….We read
weekly of men and women poisoned by an overdose of some favorite sedative,
burned to death or otherwise fatally injured, while insensible from self-
administered ether or chloroform….The narcotist keeps chloroform or
chloral always at hand, forgetful or ignorant that one sure effect of the
first dose is to produce a semistupor more dangerous than actual
somnolence. In that semistupor the patient is aware, or fancies, that the
dose has failed. The pain that has induced a lady to hold a chloroformed
handkerchief under her nostrils returns while her will and her judgment
are half paralyzed. She takes the bottle from the table beside her bed,
intending to pour an additional supply upon her handkerchief. The unsteady
hand perhaps spills a quantity on the sheet, perhaps sinks with the
unstoppered bottle under her nostrils, and in a few moments she has
inhaled enough utterly to stupefy, if not to kill. The sleepless brain
worker also feels that his usual dose of chloral has failed to bring
sleep; he is not aware how completely it has stupefied the brain, to which
it has not given rest. His judgment is gone, so is his steadiness of hand;
and he pours out a second and too often a fatal dose….But the cases that
end in a death terrible to the family, though probably involving little or
no suffering to the victim himself, are by no means the worst. A life
poisoned, paralyzed, rendered worthless for all the uses of intellectual,
rational, we might almost say of human existence, is worse for the
sufferer himself and for all around him than a quick and painless death;
and for one such death there must be twenty, if not a hundred, instances
of this worst death in life….The demoralization of the narcotist is not,
like that of the drunkard, rapid, violent, and palpable; but gradual,
insidious, perceptible at first only to close observers and intimate
friends. Here and there we find a constitution upon which opium exerts few
or none of its characteristic effects. Such cases are, of course, wholly
exceptional; but their very existence is a danger to others, misleading
them into the idea that they may dally with the tempter without falling
under its yoke, or may fall under that yoke and find it a light one. I
doubt, however, whether the most fortunate of its victims would encourage
the latter idea; whether there be an opium eater who would not give a limb
never to have known what opium slavery means….Besides, no one can be
sure, or indeed reasonably hope, that the mischief will be confined to the
individual victim. That the children of drunkards are often predisposed to
insanity is notorious; that the children of habitual opium eaters inherit
an unmistakable taint, whether in a diseased brain, in morbid cravings, or
simply in a will too weak to resist temptation, is less notorious, but
equally certain.—PERCY GREG, Narcotics and Stimulants, Contemporary
Review.
Thus also in America scarcely a week passes but we see announced in the
public prints deaths or suicides resulting from the use of narcotics. Now,
it is from tobacco: A Yale College student dies from excessive smoking;
another student in the same college, and as a result of the same habit,
commits suicide; a third young man is found dead in his bed in New York,
from heart disease induced by cigarettes; and so, month by month, and year
by year, grows in rapid increase the list of tobacco deaths.—Or, again,
it is from opium. A Harvard student with two of his college companions in
search of a new sensation, tries opium smoking one fatal night and dies
before morning; a woman in Ohio, belonging to a prominent family, dies at
the age of thirty-three years, from an overdose of morphine, her body
covered with hypodermic scars; another, once the respected wife of a
Baptist clergyman, becomes a morphine drunkard, drifts, step by step, into
a Central New York Almshouse, and there hangs herself; a third, young,
accomplished, and wealthy, falls first a victim to the morphine habit,
then to opium smoking, finally becomes the frequenter of a New York opium
joint, and so is lost forever to home, friends, and respectability.—
Occasionally it is cocaine, as in the case of the Chicago physician, who,
for the purposes of investigation, experiments with this new drug upon
himself, his wife, and finally upon his innocent children; the entire
family being found unconscious from the effects of the subtle narcotic.
These are but solitary instances in an appallingly long list of similar
cases, most of which have occurred within the last two years (1887-'88).
Cigarette Smoking is chargeable with a growing demoralization and
mortality among boys and young men. It is no uncommon sight to see lads of
ten years old and under, with the irresponsibility of ignorant childhood,
puffing the dangerous cigarette, and thus undermining health and intellect
at the very outset of useful existence. Even when told of the near and
remote perils thus incurred, they scarcely listen, for do not they see
their elders smoke and prosper?—Most of them do not understand that there
is more danger to the young than to the old in the tobacco habit, more
danger to some constitutions than to others, and more danger in the
cigarette than even in the pipe or the cigar. Pause a moment to consider
it, boys, when you are tempted to light the clean-looking, paper-covered
roll and place it in your mouth. Think of the heated smoke irritating the
delicate membrane in your throat, dulling your brain, and vitiating the
blood which should be bounding fresh and pure through your veins. Think of
the many filthy and diseased mouths from which have been cast away the
tobacco refuse, picked up in streets and public places to reappear in the
"Cheap and Popular Brand" which looks to you so innocent and so
attractive. It is astonishing, indeed, how an otherwise cleanly boy will
consent to defile himself with these vile abominations. And yet, I have
known lads who—not always with perfect politeness—would fastidiously
refuse "hash" at their mother's breakfast table, but who would shortly
afterward serenely place one of these unknowable compounds between their
lips and walk away with the air of superior manhood!
Of Chloral Hydrate, Dr. Fothergill remarks: "When this was
announced with a flourish of trumpets as a perfectly innocuous narcotic,
the sleepless folk hailed its advent with eager acclamation. But a little
experience soon demonstrated that the innocuous, harmless drug was far
from the boon it was proclaimed. In fact, the impression of its
harmlessness was the outcome of ignorance of its properties. Death after
death, even among medical men themselves, as well as nonprofessional
persons, have already resulted from the use, or rather misuse, of this
narcotic agent."
The Bromides (of Soda or Potash), also, should be used with
caution, and only on the prescription of a conscientious physician. "The
bromide of potash," says Percy Greg, "is claimed not to produce sleep by
stupefaction, like chloral or opium, but, at least in small doses, to
allay the nervous irritability which is often the sole cause of
sleeplessness. But in larger quantities and in its ultimate effects, it is
scarcely less to be dreaded than chloral." Overdoses of the bromides will
produce among other evil effects a peculiar eruption upon the face, which,
though generally temporary, is liable to reappear from time to time under
certain conditions of the system, and especially upon a subsequent dose,
however dilute.
Absinthe is a compound of absinthium (the essence of wormwood),
various aromatic oils, and alcohol. Absinthium, taken in small doses,
induces trembling, stupor, and insensibility; in larger doses, epilepsy.
When, therefore, this dangerous essence is added to alcohol, it
strengthens its influence to specific disease. Absinthe drinking is
recognized in France as such a serious vice that it has been officially
prohibited in the army and navy.
Hasheesh is a syrup prepared from the leaves and flowers of Indian
Hemp. Though its use in this country is comparatively small, instances are
not unknown in which reckless or curious persons have fatally experimented
with it. As a medicine, it is in limited use, and with results not always
satisfactory. It acts in a peculiar manner upon the nervous centers,
occasioning that strange condition of the nervous system called catalepsy,
in which the limbs of the unconscious patient remain stationary in
whatever position they may be placed. After an average dose of hasheesh,
the subject becomes the helpless victim of rapidly shifting ideas, a
prominent characteristic of which is an entire loss of judgment as to time
and place. A larger dose produces hallucinations and delirium, with that
distressing sensation of falling through endless space which is induced in
some people by opium. [Footnote: In an article entitled "An Overdose of
Hasheesh" (Popular Science Monthly, February, 1884), Miss MARY A.
HUNGERFORD gives a vivid description of a painful experience with this
drug, some portion of which is as follows:
"Being one of the grand army of sufferers from headache, I took, last
summer, by order of my physician, three small daily doses of hasheesh in
the hope of holding my intimate enemy in check….I grew to regard the
drug as a harmless medicine, and one day, when I was assured by some
familiar symptoms that my headache was about to assume an aggravated form,
I took a larger quantity than had been prescribed. Twenty minutes later I
was seized with a strange sinking or faintness which gave my family so
much alarm that they telephoned at once for the doctor.
"…One terrible reality—I can hardly term it a fancy even now—that came
to me again and again, was so painful that it must, I fear, always be a
vividly remembered agony….I died, as I believed, although by a strange
double consciousness I knew that I should again reanimate the body I had
left. In leaving it I did not soar away, as one delights to think of the
freed spirits soaring….I sank, an intangible, impalpable shape, through
the bed, the floors, the cellar, the earth, down, down, down! Like a
fragment of glass dropping through the ocean, I dropped uninterruptedly
through the earth and its atmosphere, and then fell on and on
forever….As time went on, and my dropping through space continued, I
became filled with the most profound loneliness, and a desperate fear took
hold of me that I should be thus alone for evermore, and fall and fall
eternally….There was, it seemed to me, a forgotten text which, if
remembered, would be the spell to stop my fatal falling. I sought in my
memory for it, I prayed to recall it, I fought for it madly, wrestling
against the terrible fate which seemed to withhold it. Single words of it
came to me in disconnected mockery, but erased themselves instantaneously.
Mentally, I writhed in such hopeless agony that, in thinking of it, I
wonder I could have borne such excess of emotion and lived….I began,
then, without having reached any goal, to ascend. As I rose, a great and
terrible voice from a vast distance pronounced my doom: 'Fall, fall, fall,
to rise again in hopeless misery, and sink again in lonely agony forever.'
…Then ensued a wild and terrible commingling of unsyllabled sounds, so
unearthly that it is not in the power of language to fitly describe them.
It was something like a mighty Niagara of shrieks and groans, combined
with the fearful din and crash of thousands of battles and the thunderous
roar of a stormy sea….I fought my upward way in an agony which resembled
nothing so much as the terrible moment when, from strangling or
suffocation, all the forces of life struggle against death, and wrestle
madly for another breath. In place of the woeful sounds now reigned a
deadly stillness, broken only at long but regular intervals by a loud
report, as if a cannon, louder than any I ever heard on earth, were
discharged at my side, almost shot into me, I might say, for the sound
appeared to rend me from head to foot, and then to die away into the dark
chaos about me in strange, shuddering reverberations. Even in the misery
of my ascending I was filled with a dread expectancy of the cruel sound.
It gave me a feeling of acute physical torture, with a lingering intensity
that bodily suffering could not have. It was repeated an incredible number
of times, and always with the same suffering and shock to me. At last the
sound came oftener, but with less force, and I seemed again nearing the
shores of time. Dimly in the far distance I saw the room I had left,
myself lying still and deathlike upon the bed, and the friends watching
me….Then, silently and invisibly I floated into the room, and was one
with myself again.
"…'She is conscious now,' I heard one of the doctors say, and he gently
lifted the lids of my eyes and looked into them. I tried my best to throw
all the intelligence I could into them, and returned his look with one of
recognition. But, even with my eyes fixed on his, I felt myself going
again in spite of my craving to stay. I longed to implore the doctor to
save me, to keep me from the unutterable anguish of falling into the
vastness and vagueness of that shadowy sea of nothingness again. I clasped
my hands in wild entreaty; I was shaken by horrible convulsions—so, at
least, it seemed to me at the time—but, beyond a slight quivering of the
fingers, no movement was discernible by the others….For five hours I
remained in the same condition—short intervals of half-consciousness and
then long lapses into the agonizing experiences I have described….Coming
out of the last trance, I discovered that the measured rending report like
the discharge of a cannon, which attended my upward way, was the throbbing
of my own heart."]
Concerning all these and other narcotics, it should never be forgotten
that they are true poisons, sold with the mark of skull and crossbones,
useful, like strychnine and henbane, in the hands of a skillful physician,
but fraught with deadly danger when otherwise employed. Their private use
is never safe. The weak and nervous invalid, who can not by hygienic means
build up new strength, need never hope to gain it by surreptitiously
indulging in popular narcotics. Instead, he will soon discover that he has
but added to his list of ills a new and fatal one.—E. B. S.
THE SPECIAL SENSES.
AN EDUCATED SENSE OF TOUCH (p. 230).—Laura Dewey Bridgman, teacher in the
Perkins Institute for the Blind, South Boston, lost her sight, hearing,
and sense of smell, when she was two years of age. At the age of eight
years she was taken to the institution where she yet remains. At this
time, by following her mother around the house she had become familiar
with home appointments, and by feeling her mother's hands and arms had
also learned to sew and knit. When she first became an inmate of the
Perkins Institute, she was bewildered by her strange surroundings, but
after she had become used to place and people, through her one and only
sense, her education was carefully begun. Through indomitable effort on
the part of her preceptor, she was taught to write, read, and spell, by
means of her fingers, and thus to exchange sentiments with her teachers
and with others skilled in the mysterious language of the blind and the
mute. She is now as proficient in the ordinary branches of learning as is
the average person, possessed of all the senses. Her studies include
geography, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, history, and philosophy. She
makes her own clothing, can run a sewing machine, and observes great
neatness in her dress and the arrangements of her room. Her character is
religious, and she has great success as a teacher. Not long since, she
celebrated, on the same day, her fifty-eighth birthday and the fiftieth
anniversary of her entrance to the Perkins Institute. During her earlier
years, it was her practice to keep a journal, and she now has about forty
manuscript books of her own making. She has also written three
autobiographical sketches, several poems, and is an accomplished
correspondent. When Miss Bridgman expresses pleasure, she clasps her hands
and smiles. So keen and refined are her sensibilities, that it is said she
can, in a small way, appreciate the beauty of music by means of the sound
vibrations on the floor.—MRS. GEORGE ARCHIBALD. (Laura D. Bridgman died
in 1889.)
THE NOSE (p. 232).—The Anatomy of the Nose.—Probably most of us
look upon the nose as a double hole in the head, by which we get, with
more or less acuteness, a sense of smell, and through which we
occasionally breathe. The intricate mechanism, and the skillful adaptation
of means to end, which, in common with the other organs of special sense,
it exhibits, naturally do not reveal themselves to any but the students of
anatomy and physiology. Its fourteen bones are probably better hidden than
any other fourteen bones of the body, and assist in converting what would
otherwise be a mere channel of communication, into a series of cavities
designed and adapted for particular purposes. The arch of four bones which
forms the bridge of the nose, and which is of such strength as to enable
the gymnast of the circus to perform the feat of supporting with it a man
on a ladder, is pieced on with cartilage to form the nostrils, through
which the nose communicates with the outer air. Similar openings behind
connect it with the upper and posterior parts of the mouth. The space
between these anterior and posterior openings makes a large chamber,
divided by a vertical wall into halves, each of which is still further
separated into three irregular cavities by three bones, called spongy,
from the porosity and delicacy of their texture. The ceiling of these
chambers is formed by a bone of the thinness of paper, upon which lies the
front part of the brain,—a fact the Egyptians made use of in embalming
their corpses, easily crushing this bone, and extracting the brain through
the nostrils. This bone is called cribriform (sieve-like), because it is
perforated by many minute holes, through which, from the olfactory bulbs
(specialized parts of the brain in which is resident the capacity of
smell) that rest on its upper surface, issue the delicate filaments of the
olfactory nerves, to spread themselves over the lining membrane of the two
upper spongy bones. It is in the upper chambers of the nose, therefore,
that the function of smell is performed; the nerves that supply the lower
spongy bone being entirely unconnected with the organs of smell. Over
these latter, however, sweep in and out the currents of air when the act
of respiration is properly carried out, and it is these that are
especially concerned in its abnormal performance. Usually but a very
little of the volume of air that traverses the lower chamber of the nose
has any influence upon its upper regions; and therefore, when our
attention is attracted by an odor, we sniff, in order to bring a larger
quantity of air into contact with the higher parts of the nose, or
olfactory cavities, where odors are perceived.
But the half has not been told of the anatomical and physiological
arrangements of the nose. By minute openings its chambers have
communication with many other parts of the head,—with the hollow that
forms the greater part of the cheek bone; with the eye by a minute spout
that carries off the lachrymal secretion, unless the tears are so abundant
as to roll down the cheeks; with the front of the roof of the mouth; with
the abundant cells of the bone that makes the forehead, and the congestion
of whose lining membrane probably accounts for the severe headache that so
often accompanies and aggravates a "cold in the head." The gateway to the
inner air passages, its abundant surfaces raise the air inspired to the
temperature of the body, supply it with the moisture it lacks, and sift
from it more or less of the mechanical impurities with which the
atmosphere of our houses and shops is laden.—MAURICE D. CLARKE, M.D.,
Popular Science News, April, 1888.
Smell Necessary to Taste.—What we are in the habit of calling a
"taste," is in most cases a compound of smell, taste, temperature, and
touch—these four sensations ranking in gastronomic importance in the
order in which they are here named….Amusing experiments may be made,
showing that without the sense of smell it is commonly quite impossible to
distinguish between different articles of food and drink. Blindfold a
person and make him clasp his nose tightly, then put successively into his
mouth small pieces of beef, mutton, veal, and pork, and it is safe to
predict that he will not be able to tell one morsel from another. The same
result will be obtained with chicken, turkey, and duck; with pieces of
almond, walnut, and hazel-nut; with slices of apple, peach, and pear; or
with different kinds of cheese, if care be taken that such kinds are
chosen as do not, by their peculiar composition, betray their identity
through the nerves of touch in the mouth. To hold an article of food under
the nose at table would be justly considered a breach of etiquette. But
there is a second way of smelling, of which most people are quite
unconscious, viz., by exhaling through the nose while eating and
drinking….It is well known that only a small portion of the mucous
membrane which lines the nostrils is the seat of the endings of the nerves
of smell. In ordinary expiration, the air does not touch this olfactory
region, but by a special effort it can be turned into that
direction….Instinct teaches most persons while eating to guide the air,
impregnated with the fragrance of the food, to a part of the nostrils
different from that used during ordinary exhalation; but, being
unaccustomed to psychologic analysis of their sensations, they remain
quite unconscious of this proceeding, and are, indeed, in the habit of
confusing their sensations of taste, smell, touch, and temperature in a
most absurd manner….
In trying to ascertain by experiment how far smell, touch, and temperature
enter into this compound sensation, popularly known as "taste," it is best
to make use of the pungent condiments. Mustard and horse-radish, for
example, have little or no taste, but reserve their pungent effect for the
mucous membrane of the nose during expiration. It is an advantage to know
this, for if care is taken to breathe only through the mouth, we need no
longer prepare to shed tears every time we help ourselves to the mustard.
The pungent quality of mustard, the fiery quality of ginger, and the cool
sensation in the mouth after eating peppermint, are due to the nerves of
touch and temperature, which are commonly classed as one sense, though
they are quite as distinct sensations as sight and hearing, or taste and
smell….
There are two ways in which the effort to extract all its fragrance from a
morsel of food confers a benefit.
(1.) It is necessary to keep the morsel in the mouth as long as possible.
Now the habit thus formed of eating very slowly is of the utmost
importance, for if farinaceous articles of food are swallowed before the
saliva has had time to act on them, they are little better than so much
waste material taken into the system; and if meat is not thoroughly
masticated, the stomach is overloaded with work which should have been
done by the teeth; the result, in either case, is dyspepsia. It has been
suggested that Mr. Gladstone owes his remarkable physical vigor to certain
rules for chewing food, which he adopted in 1848, and to which he has
adhered ever since. "He had always," we are told, "paid great attention to
the requirements of Nature, but he then laid down as a rule for his
children that thirty-two bites should be given to each mouthful of meat,
and a somewhat lesser number to bread, fish, etc."
(2.) Besides this indirect advantage resulting from the effort to get at
the fragrant odors of food, there is a still more remarkable direct
advantage. It is one of the most curious psychologic facts that odors
exert a strong influence on our system, either exhilarating or depressing.
While an unpleasant odor may cause a person to faint, the fumes of the
smelling bottle will restore him to consciousness. The magic and value of
gastronomic odors lies in this, that they stimulate the flow of saliva and
other alimentary juices, thus making sure that the food eaten will be
thoroughly utilized in renovating the system.—HENRY T. FINCK, in "The
Gastronomic Value of Odors." HYGIENE OF THE EAR (p. 236).—Never
Box a Child's Ear.—Children and grown persons alike may be entirely
deafened by falls or heavy blows upon the head. Boxing the ears produces a
similar effect, though more slowly and in less degree, and tends to dull
the sensibility of the nerve, even if it does not hurt the membrane. I
knew a youth who died from a terrible disease of the ear. There had been a
discharge from it since he was a child. Of course his hearing had been
dull; and his father had often boxed his ear for inattention! Most
likely that boxing on the ear, diseased as it was, had much to do with his
death. And this brings me to the second point. Children should never be
blamed for being inattentive, until it has been found out whether they are
not a little deaf. This is easily done by placing them at a few yards'
distance, and trying whether they can understand what is said to them in a
rather low tone of voice. Each ear should be tried, while the other is
stopped by the finger. Three things should be remembered here: 1. That
slight degrees of deafness, often lasting only for a time, are very common
among children, especially during or after colds. 2. That a slight
deafness, which does not prevent a person from hearing when he is
expecting to be spoken to, will make him very dull to what he is not
expecting. 3. That there is a kind of deafness in which a person can hear
pretty well while listening, but is really very hard of hearing when not
listening.
Avoid Direct Draughts in the Ear.—There are some exposures
especially to be guarded against. One is sitting or driving with the ear
exposed to a side wind. Deafness has also been known to come from letting
rain or sleet drive into the ear.
Do not Remove the Earwax.—It ought to be understood that the
passage of the ear does not require cleaning by us. Nature undertakes that
task, and, in the healthy state, fulfills it perfectly. Her means for
cleansing the ear is the wax. Perhaps the reader has never wondered
what becomes of the earwax. I will tell him. It dries up into thin fine
scales, and these peel off, one by one, from the surface of the passage,
and fall out imperceptibly, leaving behind them a perfectly clean, smooth
surface. In health the passage of the ear is never dirty; but, if we
attempt to clean it, we infallibly make it so. Washing the ear out
frequently with soap and water keeps the wax moist when it ought to become
dry and scaly, increases its quantity unduly, and makes it absorb the dust
with which the air always abounds. But the most hurtful thing is
introducing the corner of the towel, screwed up, and twisting it round.
This does more harm to ears than all other mistakes together. It drives
down the wax upon the membrane, much more than it gets it out. But this
plan does much more mischief than merely pressing down the wax. It
irritates the passage, and makes it cast off small flakes of skin, which
dry up, and become extremely hard, and these also are pressed down upon
the membrane. Often it is not only deafness which ensues, but pain and
inflammation, and then matter is formed which the hard mass prevents from
escaping, and the membrane becomes permanently diseased.
The Eustachian Tube.—The use of this tube is twofold. First, it
supplies the drum with air, and keeps the membrane exactly balanced, and
free to move, with equal air pressure on each side; and, secondly, it
carries off any fluid which may be in the drum, and prevents it from being
choked by its own moisture. It is not always open, however, but is opened
during the act of swallowing, by a little muscle which is attached to it
just as it reaches the throat. Most persons can distinctly feel that this
is the case, by gently closing the nose and swallowing, when a distinct
sensation is felt in the ears. This sensation is due to a little air being
drawn out of the ears through the open tube during swallowing; and it
lasts for a few minutes, unless the air is again restored by swallowing
with the nose unclosed, which allows for the moment a free communication
between the ear and the throat. We thus see a reason for the tube being
closed. If it were always open, all the sounds produced in the throat
would pass directly into the drum of the ear, and totally confuse us. We
should hear every breath, and live in a constant bewilderment of internal
sounds. At the same time the closure, being but a light contact of the
walls of the tube, easily allows a slight escape of air from the
drum, and thus not only facilitates and regulates the oscillations of the
air before the vibrating membrane, but provides a safety valve, to a
certain extent, against the injurious influence of loud sounds.
The chief use of the Eustachian tube is to allow a free interchange of air
between the ear and the throat, and it is very important that its use in
this respect should be understood. Persons who go down in diving bells
soon begin to feel a great pressure in the ears, and, if the depth is
great, the feeling becomes extremely painful. This arises from the fact
that in the diving bell the pressure of the air is very much increased, in
order to balance the weight of the water above; and thus it presses with
great force upon the membrane of the drum, which, if the Eustachian tube
has been kept closed, has only the ordinary uncompressed air on the inner
side to sustain it. It is therefore forced inward and put upon the
stretch, and might be even broken. Many cases, indeed, have occurred of
injury to the ear, producing permanent deafness, from descents in diving
bells, undertaken by persons ignorant of the way in which the ear is made;
though the simple precaution of frequent swallowing suffices to ward off
all mischief. For, if the Eustachian tube is thus opened, again and again,
as the pressure of the outside air increases, the same compressed air that
exists outside passes also into the inside of the drum, and the membrane
is equally pressed upon from both sides by the air, and so is free from
strain. The same precaution is necessary in ascending lofty mountains.—
DR. JAMES HINTON.
THE COLORED CURTAIN IN THE EYE (p. 238).—This ring-like curtain in the
eye, of gray, green, bluish-green, brown, and other colors, is one among
the very many remarkable contrivances of the organic world. The eye can
not bear the entrance of too much light, and the colored curtain so
regulates its own movements as to serve this requirement. The dark
circular aperture in the center, known as the pupil, is consequently
forever altering in size; on a bright, sunshiny day, out in the open, it
may be only the size of a pin's head, but at night, when there is no light
stronger than starlight, it is even bigger than a pea. The eye curtain is
fixed at its outer edge, leaving the inner edge to contract or expand,
which it does automatically and quite independent of the will, ever
preserving its circular outline. Its movements may be watched in a variety
of ways, some of which we shall describe.
The common way of watching the movements of the iris is to regard it
closely in a looking-glass while the amount of light entering the eyes is
varied. Place yourself before a looking-glass and with your face to the
window. Probably the iris will be expanded, and there will only be a very
small opening or pupil in the center. Now shut one eye suddenly, while
narrowly watching the other in the glass all the time. At the moment the
light is cut off from one eye, the iris of the other contracts or is drawn
up so as to enlarge the pupil. This shows that there is a remarkable
interdependence between the curtains of the two eyes, as well as that they
are affected by variations in the quantity of light falling on them.
Perhaps one of the most interesting ways of watching the movements of
these sympathetic eye curtains is one which may be followed while you are
out walking on the street some dark winter night. A gas lamp seen at a
distance is, comparatively speaking, a point of light, with bars of light
emanating from it in many directions. These bars, which give the peculiar
spoked appearance to a star, are probably formed by optical defects of the
lens within the eye, or by the tear fluid on the exterior surface of the
eye, or by a combination of all these causes. Be that as it may, the
lengths of the spokes of light are limited by the inner margin of the eye
curtain; if the curtain be drawn up, then the spokes are long; if the
curtain be let down, or, in other words, if the pupil be very small and
contracted, then one can not see any spokes at all. Hence, as I look at a
distant gaslight, with its radiating golden spokes, I am looking at
something which will give me a sure indication of any movements of the eye
curtains. I strike a match and allow its light to fall into the eyes; the
spokes of the distant gas lamp have retreated into the point of flame as
if by magic; as I take the burning match away from before my eyes, the
spokes of the gas-lamp venture forth again. The experiment may be utilized
to see how much light is required to move the window curtains of the eyes.
Suppose you are walking toward two gas lamps, A and B; B about fifty yards
behind A. If you steadfastly look at B and at the golden spokes apparently
issuing from it, you may make these spokes a test of how soon the light of
A will move your iris. As you gradually approach A, you come at last to a
position where its light is strong enough to make the spokes of B begin to
shorten; a little nearer still and they vanish altogether. I have found
that about a third of the light which is competent to contract the pupil
very markedly will serve to commence its movement.—WILLIAM ACKROYD.
PURKINJE'S FIGURES (p. 222).—Stand in a dark room with a lighted candle
in hand. Shutting the left, hold the candle very near the right eye,
within three or four inches, obliquely outward and forward, so that the
light shall strongly illuminate the retina. Now move the light about
gently, upward, downward, back and forth, while you gaze intently on the
wall opposite. Presently the field of view becomes dark from the intense
impression of the light, and then, as you move the light about, there
appears projected on the wall and covering its whole surface, a shadowy,
ghost-like image, like a branching, leafless tree, or like a great
bodiless spider with many branching legs. What is it? It is an exact but
enlarged image of the blood vessels of the retina. These come in at
the entrance of the optic nerve, ramify in the middle layer, and therefore
in the strong light cast their shadows on the bacillary layer of the
retina. The impression of these shadows is projected outward into the
field of view, and seen there as an enlarged shadowy image. These have
been called Purkinje's Figures, from the discoverer.—PROF. JOSEPH LE
CONTE, in Sight.