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Analysis Of A Correspondence On Some Of The Causes Or Antecedents Of Consumption

From: Fourth Annual Report Of The State Board Of Health Of Massachusetts
Creator: Henry I. Bowditch (author)
Date: January 1873
Publisher: Wright & Potter, Boston
Source: State Library of Massachusetts

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125  

Gilbert. -- A healthy location; proper food, clothing and exercise; and regular habits.

126  

Parsons. -- Diet, climate and voluntary expansion of chest.

127  

Rice. -- I know of no means of preventing it, in children of consumptive progenitors; or, at least, no means other than those used to invigorate the general health.

128  

Wakefield. -- Children who are clad in flannel, fed upon beef, mutton, etc., instead of pork; well guarded against sudden changes in temperature, may apparently, escape tuberculosis. An exciting cause, e. g. pneumonia, may develop the latent disease.

129  

Hammond. -- The special means of preventing the disease in children, are those which tend to produce a healthy and vigorous action of all the organs of the body. This can be done by proper exercise, taken when the body is not exposed to any improper state of the atmosphere, either of cold or dampness. Exercise in the open air, when the temperature is too low, or when there is much dampness, is not proper. The condition of the system when the person takes the exercise, should be taken into account. If the system is exhausted, in a measure, the exercise should be performed with caution. The clothing should be suited to the season; the diet nutritious. In fact, whatever tends to render the system active and vigorous, also tends to protect the body from all predisposition to disease.

130  

Haskell, of S., Me., says (communication received too late to be used in the general analysis), --

131  

a. By good nourishing food, largely animal.
b. By abstaining from alcohol and tobacco, especially the latter.
c. By abstaining from inordinate indulgence of animal appetites.
d. By the use of flannels, (if in New England) the year round, to chest, legs, and arms.
e. By residence in a dry climate, of high latitude.
f. By leaving home, and the cares of home, once or twice in a year, especially if they go from "the shore," inland.

132  

This last clause (f) applies, in my experience, grandly, in the treatment of consumption. By this course, and by the use of clams, oysters, fish, etc., and cod-liver oil, and porter, whiskey and hot flax-seed tea, etc., with an inhalant mixture, life has been made more comfortable and prolonged.

133  

Abell. -- To prevent the development of the disease in children, there should be extra care in guarding against exposure to wet, and chills, by attention to clothing; by using plentiful nutrition; and by keeping the digestive system in good order; rather than by any specific drugs; and by encouraging exercise in the open air, in such systematic ways as would develop muscle, and expand all the air-cells of the lungs, thereby leaving as little soil as possible, for the development of the causes of tubercle; but that any means would entirely prevent the development of those causes, occurring at, or before birth, I am not so positive. I have examined the lungs of infants, dying with other diseases, at the ages of four or six months, whose lungs were studded throughout with minute tubercles. I think change of climate might effect a good deal, in preventing tubercular development, as I have known severe cases to recover, after two years' residence in Minnesota -- both first and second stages -- though I think the benefits claimed by residing in Minnesota, overrated -- but I know many families who were apparently predisposed to consumption while living in New England, whose children almost never had phthisis developed in Minnesota. There is certainly quite a difference in the atmosphere, in some way, as I found I could myself bear twice the exposure, in Minnesota as in New England, without taking cold. My wife, also, who has been severely attacked with "hay-fever," (3) for the last fifteen years, (beginning in the latter part of August, and lasting from six weeks to three months,) whenever she visits Minnesota, escapes the attack invariably, and breathes as freely as anybody. On returning to Massachusetts the attack comes on again. She tried this experiment three times, with the same result.


(3) "Catarrhus Autumnalis" would be, I think, the more correct term, according to the recent admirable researches of Dr. Morrill "Wyman, on that very distressing malady. Autumnal Catarrh (Hay-Fever), with three maps, by Moriill" Wyman, M. D., late Hersey Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine in Harvard University. New York: Hurd and Houghton. Riverside Press. Cambridge, 1872.

134  

Luce. -- In a family of seven, four boys and three girls, all the girls and two of the boys died of consumption, under the age of twenty-five. The two remaining boys were the youngest of the family; the eldest of these began to manifest symptoms of the disease, and embarked for California, where he recovered, and is now strong and healthy. The youngest is still at home, but in feeble health. The father of this family, is a farmer and fisherman, and is now seventy-two, hale and sound; the mother sprung from a consumptive family, and died in middle life.

135  

Butler. -- By attention to diet and general habits of life; by change of location and climate, if one or both should seem to promote the disease; outdoor exercise, such as shall tend to expand the chest, and give full, free play to the lungs.

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