Xibvant of (ton$xt$$. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. LiSS*'" / r / PFLMOMRY CONSUMPTION, THAT Fatal Destroyer of Man! ITS CURABILITY DEMONSTRATED ON NATURAL PRINCIPLES ALONE. COMBINING MEDICATED AIR, MEDICATED INHALATION, and NATURAL HYGIENE. BY ANDREW STONE, M.D., MOB OF THE PULMOMETER, OR TESTER OF TnE VITAL CAPACITY; AUTHOR OF THE THERMAL OR COOL SYSTEM OF MEDICATED INHALATION; AND PHYSICIAN TO THE TROY LUNG AND HYGIENIC INSTITUTE. " Thb lungs are breathing or respiratory organs alone, an. 1 as the blood, tho brain, and nervous system U contaminated and diseased, through them, by mepbltic or poisoned air, so also can the anti- data or sanitary remedies b- administered through the same medium." — ACTHOB, " Hi studied from the life, And in the original perused mankind." — ABMBTBOHO, " Wim.F the suffering? and the untimely end "f th<- consumptive are hidden beneath the pi of fvb'mnable life, the couch of sickness and the premature grave will oot want for tenants from the ranks of youth and beaut ILLUSTRATED WITH PLATES. PUBLISHED BY 1 HE TROY LUNG AND HYGIENIC IXSTmTr; No. 96 Fifth Street, Troy, N. Y. i sea. Zvtrtmi accord *c M Court o^;^ i rork, /, 13 4 3^ ^^> ?■ /fez THE PULMO METER iinm ii» my ANDREW STONE, M.D. Tins philosophical and ingeniously contrived instrument is constructed on correct tific principles, It consists of a glass reservoir for containing air, graduated into I It mding in a bowl of water, with a valve and .stop-cork. The person g hifl capacity, instantly exhausti his breath at the time of putting the tube or mouth-piece into his lips ; the valve is at once opened, and the lungs are filled, exclu- from the air contained in the jar; water takes the place of the vacuum formed bj the air passing out into the person 1 ! lungs. From experiment on many thousands, ;i demonstrated thai the average capacity of males, in health, is 224 cubic inches, and of females, abonl 17."> or 180 cubic inches; accordingly it will be readily that the lessening or falling off in the vital capacity will demonstrate to a moral either structural or functional disease. The incipient process of tubercle or scrofulous deposit in the minute air-cells of the lungs, can be detected by this tific method earlier than by any other; hence it- wonderful importance in discrimi- nating the true condition of each OBSe, and in pointing out a timely aid, to arrest its fmtt. the want of which vast many cases WOUld be allowed to run to a Qcholy fatality. Truly Medicine is a noble profession, when it enlists the hand of and invention causes it to become i healing art indeed, by stay- B fated and dread malady. She will now take her place among her • onward progress to new developments that will ameliorate tho of "uffrring humanity, and cause joy and happiness to take the place of .firivt §crtio)L PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Ir never vu designed, in the structure of man, thai his existence iture decay; that he Bhould pass away life at that moment when every thing around points to the activity of being. Such, however, La : but the result is chiefly owing to the many arts rhich he i- reduced, in society, for the sustenance of that life ><> munificently bestowed apon him. To meet and, if possible, to avert evil by all th< within his art b the business of the physician. 3 the heart of a generous physician with greater Borrow Icitude than to sec the young, the beautiful, the I unhindered by hi> remedies and unaided by his art. •urn t<» him their appealing eyes, as to a " Priest of the is tln-n the in:. n "t' sympathy feels the heavy re- ty of hi- ]•:• I . " Buch circumstances, he finds ■ \ to pronounce the disease incurable, how unsatisfac- . iial efforts! Se may endeavor to smooth the pillow, tient from an inevitable doom. Pulmonary Consumption, until within a verj few year ancertainty and darkness. Bi universal consent among the uneducated, and with t'r suspended. The kidneys, unused to foreign secretions, yet compelled to labor beyond their design, in removing the op- pressions of the system. The bowels become confined, and every de- partment in the economy of life is disturbed. The wheels of this com- plicated machinery are thrown out of balance, and is it surprising if all sink together, shattered by the force of nature still remaining in the in but undirected to its proper ends'/ I. u- turn from this practice, which originated in the dark ages of the world, before Bcience possessed a knowledge of organic structure t'i base a rational treatment indicated from its function, as modern discoveries do now with the lungs, by administering medication in na- tural respiration, by breathing or inhaling them in the form of vapors. On entering active practice, the victims of tubercular consumption brought to my notice constituted an appalling number. These facta elicited my deepest solicitude, regarding its very general prevalence and fatality. But why should I be consulted as to its cure, so long as my instruc- from the schools and the books I had read on the subject all pro- nounced it incurable ? The thought seemed to force itself upon my mind, as by spiritual impression : how were you cured ? How was your mother cured before ■ Shall the numerous victims now appealing to you, and implor- ing yon for aid. be doomed to hopeless disappointment, and science and art go begging and confess an inefficiency for the ills of life? >ns haunted my mind by day and by night. An inward monl ied to rise Dp Bud chide me when I even cautiously cx- pressed the ambiguous opinion of authority of some gray-headed veterans ion t<> a doting mother, respecting the foreboding symp- aow menacing a fearful development, at a period PULMONAKY CONSUMPT] of i;. bad filled her breast with the most glowing antici- :- the future. Under Buch circumstances, when a mother or u . U( i b, bol too keenly, the seeming dissolution spread- . ed form, exquisite as angel beauty can picture, not in Km> • in reality on earth even, there will Bpring ap in the s the deepest sentiments and evolutions of the bouI, b murmur, - ntion,thaf questions even the goodness of Omnipotence removing, so prematurely, the object of earth's dearest affec- ■ Btudied, not read, nor developed into the more pro- phflosophy of a demonstrated reality, in the continued spirit- outside of the frail form of earth, now so melancholy di- Dsequently, can not see the just penalty for Badly, antly it may be, violating the imperative laws of physical ligappointment obscures the future and ex- - ardently anticipated here, irhat ■ panorama for moral refleo- a dafly opened to my riewl a profession that had fired my thru! ambition. as one promising laurels of victory in the opportu- the clamorings of a preponderating benevolence. I dd nature be true to create contingencies and Bufferings in her offi Ide no alternative and qo relief for the emergencies? as like these would suggest themselves to my mind, and be renew, <1 witi fresh opportunity or case. 1 many a tine- were my ears greeted with murmurs, repin- rty of the Creator, called forth from par- rty physioa] Buffering and premature dissolution of .. childrei '• hi the morning of their existence. .,- an< i in,-.-. in of thought and reflection obtains, for nd the sufferer whose head has 1 by the frosts of many winters, who often become and itional than the youth or tender age of adolescence, irho, •. M nature, yields ap lift —even laws they have both innocently and ted— with a meekness and submission produced by fond parents and friends, and a confiding trust In an abiding F [nstances of submission like these teach a more enduring and instructive rrer. Why is this! B< cause it is a as the innocent young, w ] tied in the distracting • in future life when '- ] of pride and it- (5 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. Physical suffering does not always lead to develop reason, nor the moral sentiments of our nature. The mass of mankind pursue the objects of worldly gain with an infatuation that engrosses and capti- vates reason and reflection from principles of a graver and enduring origin. The greatest good or blessing while on earth — health — is swallowed, like Aaron's rod, in the passion for luxury and the animal appetites ; hence the lessons of moral instruction, to be drawn from sickness and disease, are lost on this class for not knowing nor recog- nizing any laws for life and health. To those, therefore, who see nothing in life — no higher aim but the ambition of personal pride, of gaudy display, and, by realizing such accomplishments, find their happi- ness and enjoyment only in despising and envying others, when the objects of earth's affections, in which were centered the desires of gratification, are suddenly removed by early death — then it is to them a vale, behind which God hides a mysterious and, too often, a fated and malevolent design. While the sufferings and untimely end of the consumptive are hidden beneath the pleasures of fashionable life, the couch of sickness and the premature grave will not want for tenants from the ranks of youth and beauty. Be the occurrences of death from this cause in whatever condition of life they may, they appeal equally alike and continually to the device and genius of the physician to stay the ravages of disease — to grasp at death and stay his flying dart. Such were the pathetic appeals constantly made to my professional capacity, in behalf of the numerous and almost innumerable number of victims of pulmonary consumption. I could not yield credence to the assumption that Omnipotence had permitted a physical ill without a provision for its mitigation at least. I possessed the practical illustra- tion of my own and my mother's cure, spontaneously, by the inherent resources of the constitution, as evidence that nature could cure pulmo- nary consumption, stay the bleeding wound, and heal the ulcerated cavities — even when thwarted by officious interference: then would she not be more likely to do so when kindly and consistently aided by art? The evidence being but too palpable that the system hitherto practiced — giving medicines by the stomach — was but a blind mission to the lungs, and nothing short of failure and ill-success could attend this method. Being convinced of this fundamental error, it was easy, then, taking reason as my guide and looking to the natural function of each organ, to perceive that the lungs, being breathing organs only, alone could be reached effectively and with certainty by remedies administered by breathing or inhaling them in the shape of vapors. Every person knows that by the atmosphere — by breathing — the most PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 7 deadly and subtle gases enter the lungs and the blood, and thereby poison the whole system. It is so with contagious and atmospheric diseases of every nature ; they enter the blood through the medium of the lungs. Does it not follow, then, that the only rational, ready, and natural manner of reaching the lungs, in the way of medication, is to administer them in the form of vapors ? Every remedy that can be of benefit, or judiciously advised, can be easily volatilized, or made into a congenial vapor, and made to reach the lungs and parts affected with facility and even pleasure. The most inveterate form of pneu- monia, or congestion of the lungs, can be successfully treated in this manner, without delay in the desired effects ; but instead of adopting this method, what is the practice still pursued by the allopathic school? Answer : The life-blood is drawn from the arm by the pint ; tartarized antimony, or some other sickening and poisonous material, is given by the stomach, which is deranged in its healthy function ; the natural secretions are perverted, the appetite suspended, and the victim re- duced to a state of debility thereby so great as to endanger life, inde- pendent of the lesions, or the inflammatory disease of the lungs, which they have failed to relieve by their practice. As irrational and deadly as is this system, it is clung to with a tenacity that only governs prejudice in all creeds where reason is subverted in the tyranny of dogmatism. Under a well-regulated system of medical treatment, administered by breathing them in the form of vapors, both cool and warm, as the cases required, we have found, after fifteen years' extensive expe- rience in treating pulmonary consumption, that it is as curable as any other disease. Especially is this the case when we see the case in its incipient stages. In truth, so successful has been our treatment, by inhalation of medicated vapors into the lungs, that we regard pulmo- nary consumption as curable as a common fever or catarrh. We have seen many and many a patient who had become so far advanced as to be in the third stage, in which ulceration had produced caverns in the lungs, attended with hectic fever, night-sweats, cold chills, and harassing coughs — they had been confined to house and to bed for months, and were given up to die by their family physician of the old school— completely restored to good health and strength, and once more enabled to go into the world and enjoy the blessings and privi- leges of society. To demonstrate these facts, and illustrate the method of treatment pursued by our Institution, we will here introduce the statement of a patient, Mr. Otis Walker, whose cure is now of four years' duration, as but recently testified to. 8 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. Copy of a letter from Otis "Walker, Sherburne, Vt., showing the great benefit of our system of Cold Medicated Inhalation in curing him whoxx in the third and last stages of Consumption. "Sherburne, Vt., January 6th, 1862. 11 My Dear Sir: When I first visited your Institution, four years ago last fall, I was very much emaciated and debilitated. I had very little hope of ever being any better. My mother died with the Consumption when I was seven years old. I presumed that I had a predisposition, by inheritance, to the same disease, which had advanced to a confirmed Consumption in myself, developed by im- proper living and repeated colds. I had then a bad cough, which had been upon me for years. I expectorated much. I was troubled with pains in the chest, shortness of breathing, occasional night-sweats, cold chills, and hectic fever. I was able to make but little physical exertion. Before applying to you I had made use of almost every nostrum which came to my notice, and had been treated by several old-school physicians, not only without success, but additional aggravation of my case. Even you yourself, after minute examination of my lungs with the stethoscope, and testing them on your Pulmometer, find- ing my vital capacity very small, and a large cavern in one lung, doubted whether I would be able to live through another winter as hard as we have them in Ver- mont, but gave it as your opinion that if I would leave Vermont and go to a temperate climate, that you would be enabled to arrest the farther progress of my disease by your system of treatment — by inhalation, combined with tonics and energizing remedies. Having but little hope myself of ever being better if I remained in the North, I placed myself under your care, with the firm expect- ation of being obliged to go South. But in a few weeks your treatment had benefited me so much, had reduced the cough and irritation in my lungs, im- proved my general health and strength to such an extent, that I felt so much encouraged, I wrote you in the winter, leaving it for your decision whether I should go South or not. You advised me, with directions given, to remain at home and prosecute the treatment. I have done so, more or less, up to this time, at intervals, for four years, and I can assure you now that I am soundly and thoroughly cured, as far as having any evidence of ulceration, or caverns in the lungs, or indications of a consumptive nature — so much so, that I am enabled to pursue an active mercantile business, which taxes both mental and physical faculties quite severely. From the results of your treatment upon myself, I have sent numerous other patients to you, who also can testify to the same beneficial results in their respective persons. " With sincere gratitude I acknowledge you my benefactor, and I hope your improved and widely disseminated system of treatment and your great skill may be universally acknowledged. Your obedient servant, OTIS WALKER. 44 To Dr. Andrew Stone." We have simply introduced this one certificate, in the opening por- tion of this treatise, merely for the purpose of giving encouragement to some desponding patient. But read further in the body of the work the numerous testimonials that we there publish, after having pre- PULMONARY CONSUMPTION". 9 viously given undoubted testimony from quoted authority of medical men of standing in various parts of the world, and its perfect cura- bility by the resources of nature herself, when not thwarted by allo- pathic treatment. Bat every invalid whose hopes have hitherto been blighted by false assurances, and who had quite abandoned the idea that they could ever be cured, let him be encouraged that there is still a chance for restoration. Note. — Invalids at a distance wishing to consult us by letter, should send for printed interrogatories ; they can, at the same time, if they wish to expedite the treatment, state the symptoms of their case in brief yet plain language. They will be greatly aided by looking over the following form for reporting case and symptoms. FORM OF REPORT. For the Assistance of Patients in Consulting the Physician of the Institution, by Correspondence. All Communications must be addressed to Andrew Stone, M.D., No. 96 Fifth Street, Troy, N. Y. DIRECTIONS. If the patients complaint be obviously confined to a single system, if for instance, he have an affection of the chest, the organs of re- spiration and circulation, then he will give particular informa- tion on the several points mentioned under the head of that system to which his complaint belongs. He can speak of his nervous system, whether strong, weak, or excitable / so also of the digestive system, and read through each system carefully, thereby he will be reminded of any symptom he is subject to. Information having reference to the sort of constitution should be furnished in every case, for a knowledge of the sort of constitution is just as necessary to safe, correct, and effective prac- tice, as a knowledge of the disease itself. When the disorder is in the respiratory and circulating system, then all the particular information required under the head of that system must be furnished, and other symptoms which may belong- to any other system. It will most commonly happen that symptoms will be experienced in two or three different systems. Those symptoms of course must be reported. When the malady seems to belong to the nervous system, the di- gestive system will generally be disordered also. And when it seems to belong to the digestive system, the nervous system will also be disturbed. In either case, therefore, the particular informs- 10 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. turn sought, as it regards both these systems, should always he re- jiorted, in order to enable the physician to determine in %ohich of the two systems the root of the matter lies, for the root may exist, and most commonly does in one of these systems, while the symp- toms are chiefly experienced in the other. Li all important cases it is always best to send a small two- ounce vial of the early morning water, by post or by express, in a small tin or wooden case, for analysis. But in dropsy, liver dis- ease, heart disease, head disease, jaundice, and kidney or bladder disease, or disease of the sexual organs, it is absolutely necessary. Age? Sex? Hight? Weight? Married? Residence? Post Office ? Town ? County, and State ? INFORMATION HAVING REFERENCE TO THE SOVt OF CONSTITUTION : Past habits of life ? Past state of general health ? Diseases or injuries previous to present complaint ? Health of family, including parents, brothers, sisters ? Causes of death in family ? Consumption, Scrofula, or Cancer in family ? Probable causes, moral or physical, of present malady ? Slight or stout figure ? Short neck ? Full, red, flushed, or thin, pallid face ? Any enlarged glands, scars, or eruptions on the skin ? Color and texture of the skin ? Color of the eyes ? Color and texture of the hair ? Upper lip — full or thin ? Finger-nails — remarkably thin or brittle, or hooked over the finger- ends ? Teeth — well-formed and even — distorted or roughened ? Information having reference to Particular Diseases : Any position in standing, lying in bed, stooping, or otherwise, which is uneasy or painful ? Integuments and Appendages : Temperature of skin — hot or cool ? Moist, or dry and harsh ? State of eyelids ? Any swelling or puffiness, especially about the ankles, which leaves a pit on pressure ? Any ulcerations, abscess, or tumor ? PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 11 The Nervous System : Form and size of the head — any peculiarity ? Spine — straight or crooked ? Pain ? Giddiness ? Sensations in the head or spine ? State of the pupil of the eye — size of a pea or of a pin's head ? Does it readily contract when exposed to strong light ? Does it readily dilate when examined in the dusk ? Any remarkable change in intellect ? Temper ? Disposition ? Is the memory impaired ? Any difficulty in any of the mechanical motions of any of the limbs ? Any peculiarity or loss of sensation ? Any defect or peculiarity of vision ? Any numbness ? Any defect or peculiarity of hearing ? Noises in the head ? Unnatural smells in the nose ? Tastes in the mouth ? Despondency ? Dislike of society ? Any impairment in the power of reading, thinking, writing, or mental application ? Dreamy sleep ? Any fault of any kind, not here mentioned, either ki general or special sensation ? Any distortion of features ? Ever had fits ? When and what kind of fits ? Ever hysterical ? Does one eyelid droop over the eye lower than the other ? Any difficulty in articulating words, or other pe- culiarity in speech ? Respiratory and Circulating System : Full and broad, or narrow, contracted chest ? Pain ? Peculiarity of voice ? Difficulty of breathing ? Cough ? Of what kind ? At what times chiefly ? Expectora- tion ? Of what kind ? Spitting of blood — past or present ? Palpitation of heart ? When chiefly ? Speed and character of pulse before rising, and in the evening ? Circulation languid or strong ? Any blueness of lips or cheeks ? Or puffiness of the face ? Digestive System : Any peculiarity in form of abdomen ? Pain ? Tenderness on pressure ? Distension ? Appetite ? Nausea ? Vomiting ? State of tongue ? Appearance of mouth and throat inside ? Are they remarkably red ? Any ulcers in them ? State of bowels with reference to the frequency of their evacu- ation without medicine ? 12 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. How often do you take aperient pills or laxatives ? Appearance and character of the dejections ? Piles ? Falling of the bowels ? Rupture ? Ulceration of the rectum or lower bowel ? Uiuxo-Gexital System : » Difficulty or pain in relieving the bladder or urinating ? Character and appearance of the water ? Pain in region of the kidneys or bladder ? Falling of the womb ? Natural secretions right ? Any non- natural secretions, as leucorrhea or whites ? Natural secre- tions ? Any regular monthly, or the periodical sickness ? Mis- carriages ? Muscular and Bony System, including Joints and Spine. Pain? Stiffness? Swelling? Distortions? "Wasting? Weak- ness? Back, Loins, or Spine? Contractions? Walking powers ? Ever had Gout or Rheumatic fever ? History of origin with date of present malady, and order of suc- cession of symptoms. Present most prominent symptoms. Youth affected with nervous debility and diseases peculiar to an abuse of the sexual organs, in either sex, will be aided in obtaining from the Institution the necessary interrogatories ; so also in reading the author's book on the Causes of Premature Decay of Youth. Every applicant will inclose return stamp or stamps, to prepay the postage on letters of inquiry, reports, or interrogatories. The sum of three dollars must accompany all packages of urine for analysis and report, which sum will apply as so much paid on regular fee of treat- ment, if subsequently coming under treatment. Every patient is assured that sacred regard will be had to the trust reposed or confided to us. PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 13 Motives for adopting Pulmonary and Chest Diseases as a Specialty in our Professional Practice. We have investigated the subject of Pulmonary Consumption with an anxiety no other physician can have that has not been placed in the same physical condition that we have been — which we have alluded to at some length or detail in the body of this work — namely, the inheritance, from both father and mother, of two of the most fatal and inveterate forms of consumption that ever afflicted mankind, and which manifested itself in our own person in early childhood, in the form of hemorrhage and incipient tubercular deposits ; and again, after having recovered from them, being afflicted twice with dropsical effusions into the cavity of the chest, so extensively that we were nearly suffocated. And yet it has been our fortune, perhaps, for suffer- ing humanity for ages to come, that we have now soundly recovered from all these attacks. Fortunate — why? Because this condition of suffering in our own person led us to adopt the system of medical treatment that would seem to be in harmony with the laws of health and the rational dictates of nature. But, after studying its hygiene and topography — as far as a change from our cold, bleak climate of the North to the tropical climate of the South is concerned — and for this and numerous other reasons, we repeat, that it is fortunate for suffering humanity that we have been thus afflicted, namely, to dis- prove in our own person, in the first place, and subsequently in the success of our own practice, the fatal doctrine, which has ever prevailed among old-school physicians generally, respecting the non-curability of Pulmonary Consumption when fully set up in the system ; and, in the second place, that no aid of art, as far as medicines are concerned, could be of any avail in arresting its progress ; but their only encour- agement to their patients, when consulted seasonably, was a change from a cold to a warm climate. Thousands of poor, suffering mortals, by adopting such advice, have been expatriated from their homes and their country, and induced to go among strangers, with enfeebled and prostrated energies, frequently without being accompanied by a single friend to cheer or to care for them. And then, when they 14 PULMONAKY CONSUMPTION. found themselves in such a debilitated and prostrated condition that they needed the best of nursing and the best of care, all they realized was the cold, indifferent services bought by money. We have wit- nessed many such ourselves, while residing in Florida, who had been induced to leave their homes in such an advanced stage of their dis- sease, that no physician possessing the least modicum of humanity would have ever advised them to the adoption of such a course. Such, we say, we have seen prostrated among strangers, and buried by the cold hand of charity, without a single friend to console them in their last moments or shed one tear over their graves. We have proved, therefore, by our own experience in a tropical clime, that, instead of being beneficial to the majority of consump- tives, it only hastens their progress to the tomb. In this opinion we are fully corroborated by Sir James Clark, physician to Queen Vic- toria, who himself resided and practiced ten years in Rome, and tested the climate of Italy, and gives it as his decided opinion, from this experience, that a resort to a southern or tropical climate will never cure Tubercular Consumption ; and he warns such invalids not to leave the comforts of their own homes to go among strangers, where they will be subjected to many privations and inconveniences that will only serve to develop more rapidly the fatal stages of the disease. To further test the point of change of climate as a curative agent for Tubercular Consumption, we have not only resided in the Floridas, and seen unfavorable effects of a tropical climate upon Northern con- stitutions, but we have also resided and practiced nine years in the Western States in a malarious atmosphere, which many are aware, is another one of the old-school doctrines for the cure of Tubercular Consumption. We will not here go into the details of this philo- sophy, only to say that it was built upon supposition — namely, that the imbibition or inhaling of one poison, as that of miasm, would be the means of arresting this tubercular disease in the system and in the lungs, and which, we suppose, was based upon the principle of taking the hair of the same dog that inflicted the wound — which doctrine is equally as fatal and far more dangerous, as far as its immediate destructive effects upon the system is concerned, than the disease which it sought to cure. So strongly illustrative was this in our own experience among the hundreds of cases that we were called in our Western practice to see and prescribe for, that had been troubled formerly with pulmonary symptoms, and had measurably acquiesced to the change of the climate — yet many of them fell a sacrifice to the malarious diseases in their most malignant and deadly PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 15 form ; and such were its effects upon our own constitution, in de- veloping all its varied forms of remittent and intermittent and bilious fever, chills and fever, biliary and liver difficulties, and so aggravated and intense was the suffering derived from them, that our former prostration in earlier life by hemorrhage and pulmonary affections was as but a drop to the bucket ; and such were its effects upon our con- stitution, that we were obliged to abandon the climate and all that we had earned for nine years to restore a shattered constitution. From the experience that we have had, therefore, in our own per- son, the reader will readily perceive that we are qualified to give none other but judicious advice. Having, in the first place, been endangered seriously by allopathic treatment, we could not, of course, have any faith ourselves in that mode of treatment for curing Pulmonary Con- sumption. Indeed, it has been an instrument of the most fatal cha- ' racter ; it has been but an interference with nature herself to thwart and interrupt her resources, which would otherwise have been all- sufficient, in hundreds of cases, had they been left alone, to have restored the patient, but, by their meddlesome interference and the prostrating, devitalizing nature of their remedies, caused their victims to die seeundem artem. We were led, in the early part of our practice, to investigate the curability of Pulmonary Consumption. We found that it was the opinion of Laennec, of Louis, of Andrell, of Clarke, of Scudamore, of Bennett, and others of Europe, that hundreds of cases of Tubercular Consumption were proved to have been cured by nature herself, un- aided by medication. Being convinced, by these facts, that nature did cure many cases when left to her own resources, was sufficient evidence to our mind that she, when aided by the judicious assistance of art — by a rational system of treatment, based upon correct principles, in har- mony with the laws of hygiene — would render Consumption as curable as any other disease. Reasoning from these premises, some twelve years ago, that a doctrine so unreasonable and preposterous in its na- ture, hitherto inculcated by the old-school notions, namely : of giving medicines into the stomach to cure a disease only situated in the lungs and air-passages, — for it must be readily perceived by every one hav- ing any physiological knowledge of the organs of respiration, that no medical agent, given into the stomach, could reach the lungs, unless very indirectly and uncertainly through the medium of the circula- tion, — we have, therefore, devised a system, entirely new and original with us, of giving medicines by inhaling them in an atmospheric forim in the shape of vapors. 16 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. Our system is a wonderful improvement upon the old system of in- haling steam and warm medicated vapors advised by the ancients, and which had for centuries fell into disuse, in so far as we have conceived and perfected the method of giving our vapors and medicines in a cool form, the natural temperature of the atmosphere, which renders them tonic and restorative, and prevents the liability to catch cold. The hot vapors, on the contrary, for the most part, relax and open the membranes of the air-passages and the lungs, so that patients are more susceptible to colds and catarrhs and to the changes of the atmosphere. Method of inhaling Dr. Stone's cool or warm and thermal system of Medi- cated Vapors, as given by the Troy LUNG AND HYGIENIC INSTITUTE. Since practicing our method of cold medicated inhalation, we have succeeded in curing hundreds of cases of Consumption, combining the various forms of laryngial, bronchial and tubercular ; together with asthma in its most inveterate nature, both spasmodic and nervous ; proving, therefore, the perfect curability of Consumption and those diseases which are so prevalent in the United States, which lead direct- ly to develop Consumption, namely, catarrhs, laryngitis, and bronchitis. We were induced, some eight years since, to establish an Institution, to combine every facility and every agent that art or ingenuity could devise, for the successful treatment of that numerous class of diseases throughout the country. Being aware that physicians in the more re- mote country towns and hamlets are yet unprogressive and of the old- fogy school, clinging to their old and dangerous doctrines, and unpos- sessed of the facilities for perfect diagnosis, and for a more rational PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 17 and successful treatment in those places, we have so perfectly arranged our system of treatment, that we can send it to all parts of the coun- try, and thus treat patients with the same success at their homes as though they were with us at the Institution. This last proposition to the reader or patient at a distance, who may not have the opportunity of visiting and consulting us personally, may be received with some degree of caution or skepticism ; but we assure him, or her, as the case may be, that it is strictly true. Our scientific investigations in the chemistry of the blood and accurate knowledge of the component principles of the human system, in health and also in disease, gives us the certain knowledge of determining, by analysis of the urine, the nature and seat of every disease, with far more certainty than it could be determined by a simple, personal, ocular inspection of the patient ; for the very reason that every poisonous and unnatural element existing in the blood will be discovered on the analysis, and those morbid principles obtained therefrom are then brought under a most powerful microscope, which determines its nature to a moral certainty. The doctrine of urinary pa- thology has received, within a few years, the attention of some of the most able minds in Europe ; among others are Sir Ben. Bro- die, Bence Jones, and the late Dr. Golding Bird. These men have written and published their scientific researches in this de- partment, and have proved, by their labors, that this method of investigation of diseases of the blood, and all diseases of a chronic nature, are alone to be relied upon, not only to deter- mine accurately their causes and extent, but as being absolutely necessary to shape scientifically the rational method of therapeu- tics or cure. Specimens of Phosphates, Triple Phosphates, Urate of Ammonia, Uric Acid, and other deposits discovered in the Urine, as they appear under our microscope, after the an- 18 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. It is the microscope that has thrown such wonderful light upon the cause of Tuber- cular Consumption ; for, before the micro- scope and chemical analysis were brought to bear upon tuber- cular or scrofulous de- posits, the theory that emanated from medi- cal men, which filled volumes, would, if now read, known and adopted as formerly, consign their authors to eternal ignominy for their absurdity and their fatality. It is the microscope, therefore, that has demonstrated the nature and cause of Tubercular Con- sumption, Scrofula, and other malignant and fatal diseases of the blood. Since the discovery of the mi- croscope, the doctrine of the curability of Pulmonary Consump- tion is now proclaim- ed, as we have before said, by the most emi- nent living medical men, not only in Eu- rope but in the United States. Microscope used by the Institution in analysis and scien- tific investigation. To make our treatment successful to those patients who are at a distance, we afford them the scientific means of investigating the true condition of their case, namely, first, by analysis of the urinary, san- PULMONARY CONSUMPTION". 19 guinis or blood urine, that is first passed in the morning, being se- creted from the blood after the digestion of the food of the preceding day. In the second place, we learn every symptom and feature of their case by a series of printed interrogatories, prepared so plainly and definitely that every patient can reply to them with clearness and certainty. In addition to the explicit directions for inhalation and medical treatment, a perfect system of hygiene is written out or otherwise pre- pared in print, for every patient to follow. These embody the neces- sity of pure air being breathed by the patient in his sleeping apart- ments, the temperature of his room and the manner of equalizing and sustaining the natural temperature of the body under circumstances of intense cold, or the fickleness of our climate ; the food that it is absolutely necessary for the system to have, in order to supply the natural elements to be possessed by the constitution, to overcome dis- ease and to afford resources to heal the ulcers or caverns, if they have formed in the lungs. His clothing ; his exercises, either passive or active ; and, his habits — are given him. In addition to the medical or hygienic treatment, and to supply him with the balmy atmosphere of a Southern clime, in his own Northern home, we devise a method of preparing a medicated air-chamber, by which the patient not only is enabled to in- hale a healthy, soft, balmy atmosphere in his own room, but this atmosphere is at the same time impreg- nated or saturated ^ with soothing, stimu- lating, or healing me- dical agents, which he inhales in his natural breathing, from the atmosphere of the room, and which serve to soothe and quiet the irritation and cure every morbid condi- tion of the mucous membranes and glands of the air-pas„ Medicated Air-chamber in the Institution, and such as is devised for each patient at their homes. 20 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. sages ; thus they stimulate the ulcerated cavities, (if formed,) and put them in a condition for the resources of the constitution to heal. Under this system of treatment, the patient can enjoy himself, sur- rounded by his friends and his family and all the social comforts of home, and read the newspapers of the day, or, if able, carry on his literary pursuits at the same time, without trouble or taxation, and be breathing the healing, curative atmosphere of his room at the same time ! What a wonderful improvement is this system of treatment com- pared with that of twenty years since ! a method which I re- gret to say is still practiced by allopathic and conservative physicians — namely, consigning their patients to a hopeless grave, or prescribing their sickening and prostrating drugs, and falsely feeding his hopes, in order to make their bill larger, and when he becomes so debilitated as to risk their reputation, they send him to a foreign clime to die, thus escaping the censure that might otherwise await them had he died at home. PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. The insidious and fatal disease, Consumption", is one whose terrible inflictions have rendered desolate so many thousands of happy homes ; have laid low so many warm hearts and bright prospects ; banished hope from our path and aim from our life ; a disease so all-prevailing that its slightest symptom is at once our first and worst dread. Of all the important diseases which afflict humanity in civilized countries, Pulmonary Consumption is the earliest and most universal ; the quiver of death has no arrow so fatal. In all ages it has been the giant foe of life. It blights the ruddy hue of youth, and cankers the damask cheek of beauty. It strikes down in the haunts of business and walks of pleasure. Terrible, insatiate tyrant, who can number thy victims ? "Why dost thou attack almost exclusively the fairest and loveliest of our species ? Why select blooming and beautiful youth, instead of haggard and exhausted age ? Why strike down those who are bound- ing blithely from the starting-post of life, rather than the decrepit beings tottering toward its goal? By what infernal subtlety hast PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 21 thou contrived hitherto to baffle the profoundest skill of science ; to frustrate the uses of experience, and disclose thyself only when thou hast irretrievably secured thy victim, and thy fangs are crimsoned with its blood ? Destroying angel ! why art thou commissioned thus to smite down the first-born of agonized humanity ? What are the strange purposes of providence that thus letteth thee loose upon the objects of its infinite goodness ? Alas ! how many aching hearts have been agitated with these unanswerable questions ! How many myriads are yet to be wrung and tortured by them ! Such a disease forms so fearful a scourge, that no apology, therefore, need be offered for any judicious attempt, especially one founded upon years of personal experience, to mitigate the evils of this most de- structive of all disorders. And, however small may be the contribu- tion of my individual labor, I shall surely have more cause for satis- faction, in my own person, than he who sits down in despondency and inaction ; contented to acquiesce in the general opinion of the Old School — that for consumption there is no cure. The community, as well as the profession, have been so strongly im- pressed with the belief that this disease is so necessarily fatal, that any one who would maintain the opposite opinion, would, until within a short period of time, have been looked upon only in the light of a boasting pretender. So strongly was this opinion inherited from our ancestors, impressed upon the mind of the faculty, that their general and decided opinion — in cases that assumed consumptive traits of cha- racter — only results in the premature death of thousands, by an aban- donment of all timely and proper aid, thereby crushing their hoj)es of a cure ; and serve as a stumbling-block in the way of scientific inquiry into the true nature of Consumption, and its curability, which, by the energetic efforts of a few meritorious physicians, has been demonstrated to be as curable as other diseases. The present author has stronger motives than those that spring from exclusive devotion to one sect or school in medicine. He not only speaks from actual knowledge as to the recovery of hundreds of cases that have occurred in his own practice, but a recovery, also, of a most serious and menacing attack of Tubercular Consumption, combined with a prolonged hemorrhage of the lungs. He himself inherited, constitutionally, a strong predisposition to two of the most dangerous and destructive forms of Consumption ; namely, on the paternal side, that peculiar form which shows its effects throughout the whole circu- lation and constitution, and is first known in dropsical effusions, some- times at the ankles, at other times in the face and under the eyes, and, again, is rapidly followed by pleurisy or pneumonia, and a filling of 22 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. the pleural cavity of the chest, that we denominate dropsy. Also, on his mother's side, he inherits that more common, yet equally fatal form — though more insidious and prolonged in producing its fatal results, before the constitution yields up its claim on life — known as Tubercu- lar Consumption, and characterized by a deposit of seed-like bodies in the lungs, which frequently produces hemorrhage, and terminates fatally that way ; or, in other cases, ulcerations, caverns, and conse- quent decomposition of the lungs themselves. The author, being delicate in childhood, but possessing an indomita- ble ambition, in his nature and temperament, by hard, physical exer- tion, at the early age of twelve years, ruptured a blood-vessel in the lungs, which immediately endangered his life. By this injury he was confined to bed for twelve weeks, and for that time defied the com- bined skill of what were judged to be three eminent physicians ; for the more they administered their drugs and medicines to effect a cure, the greater the prostration became, until, at length, he drooped so low, that for several days he could not articulate audibly. At this stage of his sickness, they lost confidence in their skill to effect a cure, and voluntarily yielded him up to the care and nursing of a kind mother. Now this prostration had been produced and kept up by the use of their irritating remedies, which served but to derange his stomach and destroy all relish for food or nourishment. His mother, conceiving the idea that if an appetite could be produced, there was yet suffi- cient stamina of constitution for his restoration, took upon herself the responsibility to administer an emetic for this purpose. It was a heroic undertaking, no doubt, on her part, yet it proved to be a judi- cious one, for its operation was so beneficial that his appetite was soon restored, and the digestive organs were clamorous for that natural nu- trition which they had so long rejected. In a few weeks, by the aid of good nursing, he was able once more to go out into the outer world, and to enjoy its varied scenery and invigorating breezes, which rapidly restored him to convalescence — though he remained an invalid for some seven or eight years. These paroxysms of sickness have proved to be an important epoch in his life ; for it was at this time — seeing the failure and want of skill on the part of his attending physicians — that he determined to devote his life to the healing art, as being a field that would afford him wonderful opportunities of developing his longing taste for science, and a realm for beneficent labor — to restore those who might be situ- ated as he had been to health. Suffice it to say, for the encourage- ment of consumptives, that he is now entirely cured from this pro- longed hemorrhage and incipient Tubercular Consumption, although PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 23 he has been repeatedly prostrated from exposures incident upon a very extensive practice, and. has been twice prostrated with pleurisy and. dropsical effusions into the cavity of the chest. The peculiar form of Dropsical Consumption that he inherits from his father, as above described, is very dangerous and prostrating, and so sick was he with it, but six years since, that he was given up to die by two skillful attending physicians, yet he has recovered entirely from it. Through the convalescent stages of this disease, his vital capacity was diminished to seventy cubic inches ; but now, so complete is the recovery, notwithstanding an adhesion of the right lung to the side, which does not, however, prevent a full respiration, that he can now inhale two hundred and ten inches on the pulmometer, an instru- ment, by the way, invented by himself. But the author has other evidences of the curability of Tubercular Consumption, from among which he selects the case of his own mother* At the age of thirty-three years, she was prostrated extremely low with repeated hemorrhages from the lungs, and given up by her phy- sicians as being in the last, incurable stages of Tubercular Consumption, yet she ultimately recovered also, despite her physicians and their prostrating plan of treatment ; and subsequently died at the ripe old age of seventy years. These instances will prove that nature herself, when not molested and trammeled by the officious interference of art, and made worse by her bungling empiricism and paralyzed by the poisons too often administered to them, is all-sufficient to cure the very worst forms of Consumption. 24 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. Authority and Testimony of the Perfect Curability of Pul- monary Consumption, Before introducing the numerous testimonials that we possess of the perfect curability of Pulmonary and Bronchial Consumption by a modern improved system of treatment peculiar to our practice — and which we had the honor of introducing into the United States some fifteen years ago — to remove any skepticism on the part of the reader or invalid, who, from his situation, will of necessity feel a deep in- terest in the matter, we would say, that we are not governed in any way by pecuniary or mercenary motives in advocating its curability, which too many do for the sole purpose of filling their pockets, not only at the expense of their patrons, but they also blast all the ardent hopes that they have elicited from their false representations to them. We will, therefore, introduce the following testimonials from among medical men who stand or have stood at the head of their profession in various parts of the world — in France, England, Scotland, and in the United States — testimony to doubt which would be as unreason- able as to doubt one's own existence. If Pulmonary Consumption, in our own case, was cured by the natural healing and inherent power of the constitution, how much more so may it not be when nature's powers are judiciously aided by art, with a rational system of treatment well adapted to suit the symp toms and conditions of each case, and administered according to the natural functions of the lungs, namely, by inhalation. Laennec, one of the earliest writers, who enters very fully into the curability of Consumption, found, on examining the lungs of many persons who had died of other diseases, appearances such as would result from the healing of ulcers or burns on the surface of the body. He remarks : " After I was convinced of the possibility of cure in the case of ulceration of the lungs, I examined these remains more closely, and came to the conclusion, that in every case they might be cousidered as cicatrices." After detailing, at considerable length, the peculiarity of these appearances, he observes : " This fact seems to me to leave no doubt of the nature of these productions, and of the PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 25 possibility of the healing of ulcers in the lungs." The foregoing observations, I think, prove that tubercles in the lungs are not a necessary and inevitable cause of death, and that cure may take place in two different ways after the formation of an ulcerous excavation — first, by the cavity becoming lined by a membrane ; and secondly, by the obliteration or closing up of the cavity by means of a cicatrix. These considerations ought to induce us to entertain hope in those cases of Consumption wherein we have reason to believe the greater portion of the lungs still admit air. Although we are certain that a person has an ulcerated cavity in the lungs, we are not equally certain that this will prove fatal. We may even be justified in believing that a case wherein all the ordinary symptoms of Consumption exist, in- cluding the indications of a cavity, is more favorable, providing the greater portion of the lungs is in other respects healthy, than one in which tubercle exists to any considerable extent without the presence of a cavity. In continuation of his argument on the curability of Consumption, after regretting that it was not in his power to lay before his readers a particular account of the early history of the cases in which these evidences of cure were observed, he presents the following : " An English gentleman, aged thirty-six, resident in Paris, had an attack of spitting blood, followed by a cough, at first dry, but in the course of a few weeks accompanied by expectoration. " To these symptoms were added well-marked hectic fever, consid- erable shortness of breath, copious night-sweats, emaciation, and de- bility. The spitting of blood returned in a slight degree now and then, and in December, which was with difficulty checked by astringents. In the beginning of January he was so much reduced, that both M. Halle and Bayle agreed with me in the opinion, that his death might be daily looked for. On the 15th of January, during a severe fit of coughing, and, after bringing up some blood, he expectorated a solid mass the size of a filbert, which, on examination, I found to be evidently a tubercle in the second stage, surrounded apparently by a portion of the pulmonary tissue. This patient remained in the same degree of extreme emaciation and debility during all January, being expected to die daily ; but in the beginning of February the perspirations and diarrhea ceased, the expectoration sensibly diminished, and the pulse, which had been constantly as high as one hundred and twenty, fell to ninety. The appetite returned, the patient began to move round his room, his emaciation became less, and against the end of the month his convalescence was evident. In the beginning of April he was per- fectly recovered, and his health has continued good ever since, without 26 PULMONAKY CONSUMPTION. even the least cough, and without his being particularly guarded in his climate or regimen. " The second case is that of a gentleman, who, after having expe- rienced all the symptoms of Consumption in the greatest degree, per- fectly recovered. His respiration is now quite perfect through the whole chest, except at the top of the right lung, in which point it is totally wanting. On this account I am certain that this portion of the lung had been the seat of an ulcerous excavation, and that this has been replaced by a complete and solid cicatrix. The health of this gentleman continues good, although he often has occasion to speak in public. He has sometimes a little dry cough on the change of the weather, but takes cold very seldom. In conclusion, I think that the cure of Consumption, where the lungs are not completely disorganized ought not to be looked upon as at all impossible, in reference either to the nature of the disease or of the organ affected. The pulmonary tubercles differ in no respect from those found in scrofulous glands, and we know that the softening of these latter is frequently followed by a. perfect cure. On the other hand, the destruction of a part of the substance of the lungs is by no means necessarily mortal, since we know that even wounds of these organs are frequently cured, notwith- standing the unfavorable conditions with which they are necessarily complicated by the perforation of the wall of the chest and the admis- sion of air into the pleura." The author goes on to observe : " As soon as the hectic fever is established, wasting of the body becomes manifest, and makes more rapid progress, according as the perspiration, the expectoration, and the diarrhea are most abundant. In women and in persons of lym- phatic habit, the skin becomes white or bluish pale, with a very slight shade of lemon yellow. The emaciation then makes rapid progress toward complete marasmus, and presents to us the picture traced with such frightful truth by Aretaens. The nose becomes sharp and drawn ; the cheeks are prominent and red, and appear redder by con- trast with surrounding paleness ; the conjunction of the eyes is of a shining white, or with a shade of pearl-blue ; the cheeks are hollow ; the lips are retracted, and seem molded into a bitter smile ; the neck is oblique and impeded in its movements ; the shoulder-blades are pro- jected and winged ; the ribs become prominent, and the intercostal spaces sink in, particularly in the upper and fore parts of the chest. But neither this degree of emaciation, nor the symptoms just enume* rated, are proof s of an incurable disease. I have already noticed in- stances of cure after the patients had been reduced to the most extreme degree of emaciation /" PULMONAKY CONSUMPTION. 27 The following testimony is borne by Dr. Forbes, Fellow of the Royal Society of England, and one of the principal editors of the British and Foreign Medical Review : " For as many as eight or ten examples of cicatrization of the lungs after tubercles," says Dr. Forbes, " I refer the reader to M. AndraPs Clinical Medicine, Book III. page 382. These cases are more extraor- dinary than those given by M. Laennec, and, together with them, put the fact of the healing of tuberculous excavations beyond all question." Dr. William Stokes, of the Meath Hospital, Ireland, a writer of celebrity on diseases of the chest, has some very apposite observa- tions on this subject. He says : "We may consider this treatment (of Consumption) under two heads, namely, the curative and the palliative ; the first, the attempt to eradicate the disease by active treatment ; the second, the relieving the various distressing symptoms of a hopeless Consumption. And, however differing in detail, the principles of both methods are the same, namely, the removal of the irritation from the lung, and the improvement of the general health. There can be no doubt that, as medicine advances, the cures of Consumption will be much more fre- quent ; its nature will be better understood, its first stages be more commonly discovered, and the disease be prevented from proceeding to incurable disorganization. Consumption may be separated into two classes — constitutional and accidental. In the first, tubercle supervenes, in persons strongly predisposed to it by hereditary pre- disposition or original conformation. In these the disease is generally rapid, invades both lungs, and is complicated with lesions of both systems. In the second, we meet the disease in persons not of the strumous diathesis, and who have no hereditary predisposition for tubercle. The disease results from a distinct local pulmonary irrita- tion, advances slowly, and the digestive and other systems show a great immunity from disease. In both cases ice may effect a cure ; but this result will be more often obtained in the latter than in the former class." Dr. Carswell, the eminent Professor of Pathological Anatomy in the London University, demonstrates in the most conclusive manner, not only the curability of Consumption, but also the frequent occurrence of cure. He observes : " The cure of a disease is indicated, first, by the cessation of those symptoms which are peculiar to it, or the restoration of those modifi- cations of function to which its existence gives rise ; secondly, by the disappearance of the local cause of the disease, or by the presence of 28 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. certain lesions which are known to follow, as the consequence of such cause and of no other. Such indications of the case of tubercular dis- ease have been observed even in those organs (the lungs) in which this disease was long considered, and still is, by most medical men to prove inevitably fatal, even without ulceration or suppuration having taken place in them. The important fact of the curability of this disease has, in our opinion, been satisfactorily established by Laennec. All the physical signs of tubercular phthisis have been present, even those which indicate the presence of cicatrix in that portion of the lung in which the excavation had formerly existed." Having entered very fully into the description of the appearances in the lungs after the cure has taken place, he proceeds to speak of the extent to which the lung had been involved in the disease, in the in- stances that had fallen under his observation. " In some," he informs us, " the indications of disease were confined to a circumscribed por- . tion of the upper lobe of the lung ;" in others occupied " one half or two thirds" of a lobe. In many cases, the " whole upper lobe of one lung, and sometimes of both lungs, presented these appearances." " There must be few practical pathologists," he continues, " who will not consider these anatomical facts as evidence that Tubercular Consumption is a curable disease ! ~No objection has been brought forward, calculated in the slightest degree to invalidate the conclusion to which I have been led by the repeated observations of the changes we have described, namely, that these changes are positive proofs of the removal of the material element of the disease, and also of the cure of these lesions of structure to which it gives rise even at an ad- vanced period of its progress. We feel all the importance that would deservedly be attached to an accurate statement of the conditions under which the cure of tubercular phthisis was effected. On this point our information is vague and indefinite, but we can not, how- ever, avoid repeating the fact, that pathological anatomy has, per- haps, never afforded such conclusive evidence in proof of the cura- bility of a disease, as it has of that of Tubercular Consumption." Dr. Gerhard, of Philadelphia, in his work on diseases of the chest, not only affirms the curability of Consumption, but points out the different appearances which are presented in the lungs when recovery has taken place. After treating the subject in general terms, he ob- serves : " We have, however, more direct proofs of the curability of Consumption. That evidence is derived from pathological examina- tion, and of this there is no more striking illustration than the case of an eminent physician of this city, the late Dr. Parrish. It is well known that he regarded himself as laboring under Pulmonary Con- PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 29 sumption at an early period of life. He recovered vigorous health, lived to the age of sixty, and finally died of disease of the kidneys." In this case, we are informed, there was every symptom and evidence of Consumption, and of its complete and radical cure. The Doctor not only survived his disease, but regained vigorous health, though tubercle had been deposited in his lungs, and had proceeded to ulcer- ation and the formation of cavities. The conclusion to which Dr. Gerhard has come, from the facts which have fallen under his observation, is, that "Consumption is strictly a curable disease" The late Dr. Swett, formerly one of the physicians of the New- York City Hospital, and Professor in the Chair of Medicine in the University Medical College, in his valuable Treatise on Diseases of the Chesty considers the curability of Consumption, and gives his opinion unhesitatingly in the affirmative. He asks the question : " Is Consumption a curable disease ? The general impression in the medi- cal profession," to its disgrace be it spoken, " is, that a patient with phthisis is doomed to death. If those cases only are considered in which the disease has so far advanced in its progress that it is easily distinguished, this opinion, on the whole, is well founded ; yet, even under these circumstances, unexpected recoveries take place. I shall never despair of the life of a patient with Consumption when I recol- lect what I once witnessed in this hospital." He then proceeds to detail the particulars of a case which presented all the symptoms of Consumption in its most advanced stage. So marked were the indications of a large cavity in the right lung, that he was accustomed to speak of the case as being one of an undoubted character. " On one occasion," he continues, " I found the patient in such a state of extreme exhaustion, that it seemed to me impossible to disturb him. He was bolstered up in bed, with his head resting on his shoulder, breathing with great difficulty, bathed in perspiration, and with a feeble and rapid pulse. He looked like a dying man. The next day my attendance ceased." On the doctor's return, at the end of two months, he found this dying man was so far recovered as to be able to walk about, and continued steadily to improve. He then goes on to tell us, that during the past fifteen years he has known many persons who had all the symptoms of Consumption in advanced stages, yet finally recovered. And again : " For the past fifteen years I have been in the habit of examining the lungs of all my patients, dying of every form of disease, for traces of phthisis that had been cured. I have been astonished at the number of cases which have presented evidences of this favorable result." 30 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. With this weight of testimony in support of the curability of the disease, we look in vain through the several works from which I have quoted for one that can point out the means by which that cure can be effected. Most writers give to nature the credit of accomplishing the recovery when it does really occur. But if Consumption be cur- able by the operations of nature, in even a single instance after it has reached its worst stages, when the lungs are broken down into cavi- ties, it must surely be within the reach of art to aid nature so far as materially to increase the frequency of such recoveries. Every phy- sician who has read deeply the human system, has learned that it is but the province of our art to assist the efforts of nature — to remove obstruction— to lighten the burden which oppresses the diseased organ — to remove those influences which feed the malady, and thus allow the Great Physician, acting through the agency of those vital and im- mutable laws which he has implanted in our being, to restore the lost balance and recall the harmonious action of all the organs of the body. Having proved that Consumption has been again and again cured, and by evidence of the most positive and indubitable character, estab- lished the frequent occurrence of such recoveries, we feel that this vexed matter should be considered as placed forever at rest. It may be excusable for those who have not had much experience in the chamber of sickness, and even for creditable old matrons who have spent their lives in nursing the sick, and yet, throughout that long period, have not known one case of recovery, though they have ad- minstered the potions prescribed by a score of learned doctors — it may be excusable, I say, for these to deny the curability of Consump- tion/ but for physicians to do so is without palliation. If they believe it to be incurable, then they are ignorant ; and for ignorance such as this, where life is at stake, the largest charity has no excuse to offer. If they, on the other hand, believe it curable, and yet deny such to be the case because they know not the means, then are they false to their professional brethren whose treatment has been attended with more success ; false to the profession to which they belong, (for they deny what it has proved,) and false to their patients, whom they deceive until the disease has reached a stage when deception is no longer pos- sible, and then proclaim its hopeless character, weakening the last hold of their victims on life, and depressing the mind to utter despair. If you are an invalid, there is a safe rule to guide you in your judg- ment, and one to which the physician has no right to object. It is this : You have diseased lungs, and, to attain recovery, are about to seek medical advice. Among the physicians of your acquaintance there may be some who do not believe Consumption can be cured. PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 31 Flee from such as you would from certain destruction, from the em- bodiment of all evil. Had one patient, by their administrations, been rescued from the grave, this belief would vanish ; and the physician who, during his practice, has not saved one, is an unsafe pilot through the storm on the troubled sea over which the consumptive must pass. On the other hand, those who admit the curability of Consumption should be able to refer to those whom they have been instrumental in rescuing from the grave, after unequivocal symptoms of this terrible malady had proclaimed themselves. We here append a few cases to show to the reader how perfectly curable is Tubercular and Bronchial Consumption, aided by our modern and rational system of treatment, by introducing the medica- tion directly to the seat of disease, in the form of vapor, inhaled at the natural temperature. CASE 2. " To Dr. Andrew Stone, Physician to the Troy Lung and Hygienic Institute : " My Dear Sir : Having received great benefit from your treatment by in- haling cold medicated vapors, I am desirous of making it known for the benefit of all those who may be similarly affected. For eighteen months and upward I was very much troubled with affections of the throat and lungs, which gave me much uneasiness, trouble, and pain at times. la the mean time, losing a brother by Consumption or disease of the lungs, I became anxious for my own safety, and had embarked for New-York to obtain medical relief and counsel there ; but on my way put up at the Mansion House in Troy— where you then resided and had your office — and learned there of your great success and skill in treating consumption and throat diseases. I was induced to con- sult you, and being convinced, from your scientific manner of examining the chest, that you understood my case, I put myself under your care, and adopted your method of treatment by inhaling medicated vapors into the lungs and the air-passages, the seat of my disease. And now, sir, it is with the deepest sense of gratitude that I inform you that I am entirely recovered. "Our climate, near the St. Lawrence, being latitude 45°, is particularly hard and trying in the winter season for diseases of this nature. I have passed through some three or four winters since I came under your care without any relapse or renewed irritation therefrom. , I consider my cure permanent, and attribute it to your new system of treatment and your skillful management of my case. I permit you, hereby, to refer any one to me you please for my approbation and encouragement of its good results. " I am, dear sir, yours very truly, "Lemuel F. Perry. "Perry's Mills, Clinton Co., N. Y." 32 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. CASE 3. "To Dr. Andrew Stone, Physician to the Troy Lung and Hygienic Institute: " My Dear Sir : Having received the greatest benefit from inhaling medica- ted vapors, under your care and professional attention, I wish to bear testimony to its good results. " One year ago this present summer, my health was extremely impaired by my occupation and profession — being that of compositor and printer. My lungs troubled me very much, and I suffered great pain in them, with difficulty of breathing ; my vital capacity and strength was very much impaired, and I was extremely feeble and emaciated. I consulted you, and, although a perfect stranger to me, you had the honesty to tell me that it was beyond your power or system of treatment to restore me unless I gave up my business and kept myself in the open air, which I tlxen concluded to do. I put myself under your care, and, after adopting your system of cold medicated inhalation, my health rapidly improved, with all corresponding symptoms — increasing the vital capacity of my lungs one hundred cubic inches in four months' time, as proved by your pulmometer. "I have the utmost confidence in your treatment of pulmonary and throat affections by medicated inhalation — in fact, it is the only treatment that looks rational to me, as being founded on physiological principles, namely, to reach them oy direct medication. " Owing to my own carelessness, and not rigidly observing the cautious and wholesome hygienic rules that you gave me, I incurred some relapses, which I ultimately recovered from. I mention this as being my fault, and not any thing against your very successful system of treatment ; for many of your enemies, stung at your successful and growing fame, have endeavored to use this to your disadvantage, in the same way that true merit always meets with persecutions. But, my friend, be not discouraged. So long as you pursue the same generous disinterestedness, as I know you now do to all your patients, to inform them that their ills proceed from the direct infringement of the laws of health, you must prosper and obtain success, for it is promised in the pro- vidences of moral rectitude. "I permit you to refer any inquirers to me, and also the publication of this letter as a testimony of your treatment and skill in the healing art. "Very truly yours, "Abram O'Donnel, "Troy,N.Y." Note. — It is now four years, since the 9th of July, 1857, that Mr. O'Donnel came under our care. He is now entirely cured of the severe chest complaints that then afflicted him, as he has informed us but a few days since, and is acting in the capacity of foreman for Scribner & Co., Troy, N". Y., where he can be seen or referred to. PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 33 SYMPTOMS OF TUBERCULAR CONSUMPTION. "Writers, generally, have enumerated among the more prominent symptoms of Tubercular Consumption, a short, dry, hacking cough. However much cough may be an attendant in some cases and stages of Tubercular Consumption, it is not a uniform symptom; in many cases where it attends the patient as a symptom, it is only manifested in the last stages of the disease. Hence, many victims of Consump- tion — that have far advanced in its progress, and are suffering materially from ill-health, from lassitude, or general debility — on seeking our advice, have often been led to say (and they try even to forestall our opinion at the first outset of their examination) that nothing ails their lungs — they can not be consumptive, because they have no cough ! This is the reply met with by every physician of experience ; and we have met with this reply in thousands of instances, in our own expe- rience, in examining invalids and consumptive patients. Hence, this notion, held out by physicians generally, is thought to be necessary as a symptom by people universally ; namely, that to be consumptive, one must have a cough, which has been the means of leading thousands astray, by deterring them from seeking timely advice and aid that might otherwise have saved them from a premature grave. Cough is not the first symptom of Tubercular Consumption, in the large major- ity of cases. This fact can not be too forcibly impressed upon the minds of the reader and the patient ; for, says a late writer, " in- stances occur where the cough is but trifling through the whole course of the disease, and also where it does not come on until its latest stages. Cases have often happened, indeed, where there has been either no cough at all, or not until a few days prior to dissolution. Such, to be sure, are exceptions to the ordinary course of Consumption, yet im- portant to be noticed, since cough is so generally regarded as essential to its existence. How often the expression is heard from the lips of those wasting away under this disease : * Why, I am sure I can not be in a Consumption, for I have no cough? " The malady is not to be known by the cough, then, merely. How 3 34 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. then shall we know the condition of the patient, or what constitutes Tubercular Consumption ? We reply, that it can be known only by a careful review and enumeration of all the symptoms manifested which indicate a departure from health. Among the more prominent symp- toms of Tubercular Consumption, stands foremost a general emacia- tion of the body, loss of flesh ; the victim shows evidence of bad nourishment, innutrition — the want of healthy digestion and assimila- tion of food. If the appetite is good, and food is used, it does not seem to nourish or to build up the tissues of the body. General de- bility ensues ; the victim is easily exhausted on making any great exertion, especially if this exertion consists in ascending an eminence or a flight of stairs hurriedly ; shortness of breathing is easily pro- duced ; the heart is excited to undue emotion and palpitation ; and the patient, or victim's strength is easily exhausted. Coldness of the feet and extremities attend all this class of cases ; but frequently are alternated by sensations of burning heat in the soles of the feet and palms of the hands. For the most part of the day, the temperature of the body, especially in the limbs, will be a long way below par, that is, below the natural temperature of the blood. This often is the case, from infancy upward. Hemorrhage, or bleeding of the lungs, attends many cases of Tubercular Consumption, and sometimes is among the earliest symptoms, and the first to excite any fears or alarm. But hemorrhage, or bleeding of the lungs, according to the statistics of Louis and others, only occurs in about sixty per cent. That was in France. In our own practice in the United States, we have noticed, in our own records, that spitting of blood does not exceed more than forty per cent, and, in the majority of cases that we have seen, only manifests itself in the third stage of the disease ; namely, when the lungs are studded with tubercles, and in a soften- ing process. Bronchitis, or Bronchial Consumption, is very prevalent in the United States ; and spitting of blood, from congestion of the super- ficial blood-vessels that line the membranes of the throat and air- passages, occurs so frequently in the latter disease, that it has been confounded by the Old-School physicians, and the victims them- selves, with Tubercular Consumption, when the bleeding, in such cases, was not indicative of any tubercles in the lungs whatever. Be it understood, once and for all, that Bronchitis, Laryngitis, and in- flammation of the throat and air-passages — which is peculiarly a national malady and universal disease — is not to be confounded with Tubercular Consumption. It is a complaint, however, that allures many victims, from the general consideration of its harmlessness, PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 35 from a timely cure, thinking that it will wear itself out, which is the popular notion, when it invariably terminates as fatal and is as incur- able, when let alone, as Tubercular Consumption. We shall dwell more at length upon this latter affection of the throat and lungs in its appropriate section, but merely mention this here to disabuse the mind of the reader — the victim of Tubercular Consumption — that the two diseases are as wide apart and as different in their nature as Dys- pepsia is from Bilious Fever. However, we admit that all the symp- toms attending an acute or chronic Catarrh, inflammation of the fauces, throat, and air-passages, mask and cover up Tubercular Con- sumption in its earlier stages, especially if the victim of Bronchitis or throat disease, inherits, by parentage, any tendency or predispo- sition to Tubercular or Scrofulous Consumption, which is the case in the large majority of instances ; for in the United States the tendency to Tubercular Consumption is inherited, and if not inherited, it is a disease easily acquired, and easily developed by the pernicious hab- its of dress and living so generally practiced in our country ; hence, where there is any liability, from parentage, to Tubercular Consumption, although tubercles may not have been deposited in the lungs previous to taking on the catarrhal inflammation, which has resulted in the bronchial tubes, the latter affection has invariably developed the latent tubercular disposition. Here we would remark, as before stated, that there is no one disease so common in the United States as catarrhal and bronchial affections ; and we would caution all those having any prior predisposition to tubercular disease, by parentage, not to consider an acute catarrh, or a throat disease harmless, or as something that will wear itself out — self-curative ; for surely it will invariably terminate fatally, if they act upon this principle. Indeed, in all cases of strumous or scrofulous diathesis, cases of impoverished blood, want of positive vigor of con- stitution — under existing habits and circumstances of dress and living, so characteristic of our people — no one class of diseases become so uniformly fatal as catarrhal and bronchial affections. Spitting of blood is a very common symptom in the latter disease ; hence, it can not be decided from this manifestation alone, that the patient has tubercles in the lungs, without a proper physical examination by the Stethoscope and the Pulmometer. The reader will observe by this, then, that giving dry statistics in regard to the number of cases of spitting of blood that occur, can be no certain data on which to deter- mine the true condition of the lungs ; for it ever has, on the part of Old-School physicians, been confounded, as we have aimed to con- vey in the preceding paragraph, with the raising of blood which 36 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. occurs in catarrhal and bronchial affections, in congestion of the lungs as the consequence of pneumonia ; hence, the symptom in itself, without a very discriminating diagnosis made by the Pulmometer, will be vague and uncertain. In Catarrhal and Bronchial Consumption, the raising of blood is curative in its nature ; for it only, as we have before said, comes from the little delicate vessels which line the mucous membranes of the throat and bronchial tubes, and is curative, in so far as it unloads the congested or over-distended condition of those blood-vessels. Hence, many patients are excited to a great and needless alarm when they raise blood, thinking that it comes from the lungs proper, the air-cells, and is the certain omen of Tubercular Con- sumption. It should excite no fears whatever under proper and judicious treatment. Why? Because it is curative in its nature. On the other hand, should it be an indication of tubercular deposits in the lungs or air-cells, it is one of the most alarming features of the true condition of the patient. The reader will see by this, then, that many symptoms, aggravated and alarming under some circumstances, are harmless under others, and that they are nothing, in themselves, but external manifestations, only to be determined by a very judi- cious and scientific examination on the part of the experienced physician. Extreme loss of flesh and emaciation, attended by shortness of breath and great debility, pallor of the countenance and lips, cold- ness of the extremities — all are indicative of tubercular deposit in the lungs. But even these, like spitting of blood, are not unvarying symptoms of Tubercular Consumption. Why? Because diseases change just in proportion to place, habits, and modes of living. Hence, we have many other diseases of a very alarming nature, and fatal in their tendency, involving a great emaciation of the body, extreme nervous debility, palpitation of the heart, shortness of breath, hurried breathing, almost to suffocation, on the slightest exertion, like going up a hill or flight of stairs, or under the slightest perturbation of mind, excitement of the passions, or fear, and yet not proceed from tubercular deposit in the lungs. We allude here to that now all-prevailing class of maladies, which we have termed in another little work of ours " On the Causes of the Early Physical Degeneracy of American People " — Nervous Debility, and which have their origin in other organs of the body ; involving the passions, in their early development, to an inordinate excitement and indulgence, as being the primary cause of this extensive emaciation and debility. Well, what does all this indicate to the reader — what is its true meaning ? It means just this : that there is no symptom in itself, or PULMONAKY CONSUMPTION. 37 class of symptoms, but what are vague, indefinite, and involve much uncertainty, as to the true condition of the patient, respecting tuber- cular disease of the lungs, as to what organ or set of organs may be affected, to develop them, without a very scientific, careful and dis- criminating examination on the part of the scientific physician, who is well read and posted in his profession. Whereas cough, especially a dry, short, hacking one, which attends a patient, particularly on rising in the morning, may be strongly indicative of tubercular deposit in the lungs in many cases, yet we see precisely the same symptom, and the same form of cough which proceeds from nervous debility, or excitability of some organ or organs combined ; nervous Dyspepsia, for instance, an affection of the liver, or merely a bronchial mucous congestion, or congestion of the tonsillary glands in the throat. As we advance farther with the symptoms of Tubercular Consumption, we find that, in the more confirmed stages, Hectic Fever, manifested at night, or through the day, burning of the palms of the hands and soles of the feet, alternated by chills, cold extremities, night-sweats, and obstinate Diarrhea. But we have again to say, in qualification of this latter class of symptoms which peculiarly characterize Tuber- cular Consumption, that they characterize other forms of disease, and diseases of other organs when the lungs are not affected with tuber- cles at all. It is a very alarming symptom, when we see a comparatively stout man, or a healthy female, commence to bleed hurriedly from the mouth, and, in a very short time, lose from one teacupful to two pints of clear, florid blood. As it is alarming to the victim himself, so it is very alarming to the observer, out of sympathy. "What can be more alarming, knowing, as we all do, that our strength and our life exist in the blood ! To see it run from the lungs, apparently at a rapid rate — at a rate threatening suffocation — without any very evident cause, but some slight exertion. A case like this is very ominous, sus- picious, and alarming in its nature, (we have seen many such ;) and yet it does not indicate tubercular deposit in the lungs. Still, it is fair to suppose, on witnessing such a case, that it is strongly indicative of great tubercular deposit in the lungs, and that the immediate cause is, that a small artery, or branch of an artery, has been severed by the tubercle softening, or ulcerating, thus involving the integrity of the artery. Many such cases occur and are met with by the experienced physician, and, alarming as they are, many with proper care and treat- ment, ultimately recover. I have alluded to the recovery of my mo- ther as one, and to myself as another. It will be understood by the reader, that there are various forms of SS PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. Tubercular Consumption, as well as all other diseases. Some manifest themselves and run their course very speedily, being latent in their nature; that is, their predisposing and immediate exciting cause of death has been masked, hidden, in other words, latent to the perception of the victim himself and his friends. He or she has been in ordinary good health, in the common American acceptation of the term we mean ; for few Americans possess good, sound health ; that is, health here is the exception, and sickness the general rule. In fact, it is not fashionable to be healthy, especially with females. To be robust, strong, hearty, and hale ; to be well-developed in physique ; to be able to do a good day's work in the kitchen ; to do as our mothers did, would be the hight of vulgarity in their daughters, the females of the present day. Strength, every rational person knows, cceteris paribus^ every thing being equal, is an indication of good health. To be strong, muscular, and able to accomplish a good physical feat in walking, ex- ercising in the open air, or the domestic duties of the house and family, although it would be a sure evidence of good health, it would not be received as orthodox by American people. Why ? Because it is not fashionable ; it is not respectable, and it would be called vulgar. We repeat, then, that there are many, both male and female, in the enjoyment of apparent good health, suddenly taken down with a cough, night-sweats, hectic fever, cold chills, or bleeding from the lungs, without general emaciation of the body, or even extreme de- bility. The disease runs a rapid course, and death ensues, even with- out expectoration of pus or softened tubercular matter. We have seen many such cases, on a post-mortem examination, where the lungs have been found completely studded with tubercles ; but not even softened by ulceration. This is termed latent consumption, generally called galloping consumption, because it runs such a rapid, fearful course, from the first evident manifestation of any disease existing in the lungs. On the contrary, the majority of cases, as we began to indicate at first, proceed more moderately, occur in people that never had been well nourished or well developed physically and muscularly. They have been subject to cold feet and cold extremities. The tem- perature of the body has always been below its natural standard. They are not well nourished. They wear a pallid cast of countenance, and pale lip. Occasionally, a blush will appear npon one cheek, which, by the way, is not an indication of health, but, to the experienced eye, an indication of that worm that is gnawing within. This class of patients may also be troubled with hurried breathing, or shortness of breath, for years. They may pass through childhood in a sort of delicate manner, and after meeting with puberty, if a female, become PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 39 for a while quite embonpoint, obtain their catemenia for a few times, or a year or two ; but the persistence in the general fashionable mode of clothing causes a suppression of this most important function, and throws the balance of the excitement to the lungs ; and the condition of their blood, the preponderance of albumen, over and above the vital principles, causes a rapid deposition of tubercular and scrofulous matter to take place, and they decline into consumption, which is characterized by the three well-marked stages, in which cough, hurried breathing, and general emaciation and debility may have remained for several years, and at length terminate in the expectoration of pus and the destruction of the lungs, in the manner that terminates the ma- jority of cases. Another class of symptoms that characterize a true Tubercular Con- sumption, or disposition of the blood and constitution, is seen in child- ren that are known and pronounced to be scrofulous, though it is sometimes the case that an infant or a child, dying with consumption, is found to have tubercles in the lungs. This is peculiar to those only that inherit a strong predisposition from their father or mother, or both combined. Children die every day, and at a melancholy and fearful rate, with tubercular disease ; but not with tubercles in the lungs. We mean that it is that peculiarity of constitution of the blood and the whole physical system which constitutes the tubercular diathesis or disposition, which, in after periods of life, deposits the tubercles in the lungs. In infants and in children, it is known by scrofula, by rickets, by curvature or ulceration of the spine, hip-joint disease, swelling of the glands of the throat, tumid eyelids, great aversion to light, flabby muscles, and ill-developed form physically ; coldness of the surface, paleness of the skin and countenance. Many of this class are subject to bad eruptions, and they take on scarlet fever, malignant sore throat, diphtheria, quinsy, membraneous croup, acute catarrh, pneumonia, or congestion of the lungs, and are con- signed to an early grave by some of these forms, which really is nothing more than Tubercular Consumption. The reader will understand by this, that they possess in the blood, in their physical constitution, all that embodiment of tubercle which, in the more advanced periods of life, gives rise to the deposit of tubercles in the lungs. But the force of manifestation of this dis- eased condition of the blood, and the digestive and assimilative func- tions of the body, is in the form that we have just enumerated. It is a prevailing opinion that Consumption is most common and fatal between the ages of twenty and thirty, or those above fifteen years even. But this is not correct ; for there is no period of human 40 PULMONAKY CONSUMPTION. life during which Consumption is so fatal as between the ages of two and fifteen years. We mean in infants, and in children from two to five or eight years, that it assumes that peculiar form which causes death by some one of the diseases before enumerated, affecting either the lungs or other parts of the body in this fatal manner. To such an extent of fatality does this prevail among children, that a distinguished physician, the head of a hospital for children in Paris, has found that out of nine hundred and twenty deaths in children, five hundred and thirty-eight, more than one half, were from consumptive diseases, in some one of those forms. The statistics in the United States are equally as great ; especially at the time that I am now writing this still more, occurring in the shape of that more appalling, malignant form of Consumption known as acute diphtheria. It is now an every-day occurrence, in nearly all the Northern States, if not in all the United States, for whole families of children, six in numerous instances in succession, to be sw T ept off by this new form of disease, in the course of a week or ten days. So long as death comes so prematurely ; so long as children are so generally and inevitably doomed, either through willful ignorance or palpable neglect on the part of their parents, and their deaths must take place in such a melancholy, unsuspected a manner, it would be better for the victims themselves to meet it in the shape of this more sudden phenomena, (diphtheria,) though for the time being it might strike a more appalling blow to the parents themselves, than to have it occur a few years later, and have the cords of their existence gently loosened in that very gradual, insidious, but fatal manner, by the same fell destroyer, in the more lingering form of tubercular phthisis ; for, in either case, the cherished hopes and anticipations of fond joarents would alike be blasted. But we will pass, for the present, from this unhallowed " sacrifice of the innocents," by this horrible disease, on the part of their parents, as it were, to consider again some of the other features, obscure though they may be, of approaching Consumption. After the female merges from her childhood, she may have passed through the two first stages of dentition ; periods which sacrifice so many children in the form of convulsions, spasms, or dropsical effusions upon the brain or in the abdomen, which still arc but manifestations of the same great constitutional disease which we are aiming to de- pict, namely, Tubercular Phthisis. We repeat, after she has passed these two stages, yet with extreme delicacy and feebleness of health and constitution, she approaches the period of puberty, that important epoch in her life which, if the vital, physical stamina should be equal, PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 41 is to fulfill one of the grandest and greatest functions of her nature — to wit : to establish her catemenia or her monthly periodical flow, which, in other words, but signifies that the ovaries are capable then of evolving an ovum or an egg. To be capable of becoming a mo- ther, and to fulfill her important function, is one of the grandest and noblest conceptions that the female mind is capable of. Who would not become a mother ? Who would not willingly pass through all the anxieties, and all the apprehensions of the preparatory course of evolving the germ of some future Washington ? of nursing and watching through his infant development and growth, the mental evolution and expansion, as the body grows to maturity ? Does not our country, amid this awful crisis, require such another genius, to navigate it safely through the tempestuous storm which now threatens to submerge it ? The charms of a healthy woman are certainly many and powerful ; the " expanding rose just bursting into beauty has an irresistible bewitchingness ; the blooming bride, led triumphant to the hymeneal altar, awakens admiration and interest ; the blushes of her cheek fill us with delight. But the charms of maternity are more sub- lime than all these. Heaven has imprinted on the mother's face some- thing beyond this world, something that claims kindred with the skies. The angelic smile, the tender look, the waking, watchful eye, which keeps its fond vigil over her slumbering babe, these are objects which neither the pencil nor chisel can touch, which poetry fails to exhaust, which the eloquent tongue in vain would eulogize, and on which all description is ineffective. In the heart of man lies this lovely picture ; it lives in his sympathies ; it reigns in his affections. His eye looks around in vain for such another object on earth. Maternity — ecstatic sound ! — so twined around our hearts that they must cease to throb ere we forget it. It is our first love ; it is a part of our religion. Na- ture has set the mother on such a pinnacle, that our infant eyes and arms are uplifted to it. We cling to it in manhood. We almost wor- ship it in old age." To develop, then, this important epoch in the ap- proaching mother, involves a momentous responsibility on the part of parents ; none other than to know and to realize their duty in regard to the physical education of their children, in order that they may be soundly developed and possessed constitutionally of the elementary materials which alone can build up and develop this animal structure and give force to every organ of the body. But to establish this one function in the daughter, how much of science, of intelligence, of moral consideration is involved ! To see her approaching this period, not only with pallor of countenance and faded cheek and lip, or even greenness or sallowness, which, to the professional eye, indicates too 42 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. evidently that diseased condition of the system known as chlorosis or green sickness — she passes her fourteenth year, which, in the majority of cases, where nutrition and development are equal, when puberty should have been established, without her matrix or womb giving any indications of establishing this function. A tender mother, who has })assed through the experience of female life, knowing the conse- quences of such a suppressed function, is alone capable, in the sym- pathy of her nature, to fully comprehend the direful results. She grows tall and slim ; she is delicate and fragile ; her muscles are soft and flabby ; her voice is weak and trembling ; her breath is easily ex- hausted on the slightest exertion ; her heart is disturbed, and palpitates at the rustling of a leaij the sudden jar of a door, or approach of a per son unawares ; her sleep is restless ; she rises in the morning unre- freshed and listless ; she is destitute of a healthy appetite ; in fact, her appetite is most capricious, and craves only such articles of food which, to a healthy person, would excite the most extreme disgust ; for in- stance, a longing for plaster, for slate-pencils, clay, chalk, magnesia, coal, and elements too disgusting to name. To such an extent is the capriciousness of this appetite, that we have seen many a female pick plaster from the wall and eat it as a sweet morsel. She also becomes retiring in her disposition, fond of solitude ; is melancholy, downcast, and depressed in spirits ; in many instances even giving vent to sighs and moans ; indeed, with her, so great is the moral depression that not unfrequently attempts are made at suicide, and insanity, in some one of its forms, is a very common coincidence. She passes on, and this important function is not yet established, causing to parents who are thoughtful and reflecting an anxiety unfathomable. In a short time, cough ensues, hectic fever, and all the long and melancholy train that take place on the development and fatal termination of Tuber- cular Consumption — to wit, night-sweats, cold chills, often a swelling or bloating of the ankles, in a little time profuse expectoration of ulcerated matter from the lungs supervene, and death closes the mournful scene. These are but the symptoms of the too common and every-day occurrences of deaths by Consumption, that fell destroyer ! It is not our place in this chapter, dwelling on the symptoms of Con- sumption merely, to mention what are the causes which give rise to this condition of the constitution, like the one we have just depicted, for not being able to establish that great function, which is but a sure indication and evidence, where the constitution is rightly nourished and developed from infancy, of being the key-stone in the great arch of the perfection of female organism, which alone constitutes good health. PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 43 There are other symptoms peculiar to this disease, which manifest themselves more frequently in males than in females. Whereas in females, frequently, it is denoted by a bright, intelligent, sparkling wishful, and hopeful eye, it is the reverse in males. There is a want of expression in the eye, a downcast look, a want of confidence, a sunken circle appears around the orbs ; extreme nervous tremor also attends its development, intense palpitation and nervous excitement — especially may this last affect the larynx and the throat, coming on suddenly under the least excitement, so much so as to cause that phe- nomena known as Astridula, or contracted state of the larynx, a dry hemming and effort to expectorate from the trachea, windpipe, or bron- chia, without being able to do so, and frequently loss of voice. This last chain of symptoms merely show how great is the nervous system involved, especially the nerves of the larynx, trachea, and respiratory organs. This latter class of symptoms is peculiar to this form of Con- sumption known as nervous debility, involving the pneumo-gastric nerve, the nerve leading both to the lungs and the stomach, likewise to the heart. Tubercular deposits make their appearance, in this last class of cases, from extreme exhaustion of the nerve and vital forces of the body. As we have before said of the young Miss, it does not apply in this chapter to give reasons for the causes of these many symptoms, and this peculiar form of Consumption. The reader will find it in its ap- propriate section. Indeed, so masked, hidden, imitative, modernized, to use an appro- priate term, have become the many indications for Consumption, in America, at least, was the reader to read the standard authors of Eu- rope upon Tubercular Consumption, with judgment and discrimination, he would be at a loss to apply them to the vacillating, mysterious symp- toms that they peculiarly assume in the United States. Does he ask why all this ? We would not wish to keep our readers in the dark ; but light must break in relation to the capacity of the recipient to bear it, without being blinded by its overwhelming effulgence. As Jesus of Nazareth said to his disciples before he was offered up to be sacrificed, " Many things more would I tell you, but ye are not now capable of receiving them." The author of this brief work has shared in the persecutions of this world, especially in the commencement of his professional life. While yet in his infancy, for reasons of ill-health, given in the preliminary chapter, he was thrown, with a debilitated and infirm constitution, upon the world, not only for a livelihood, but to satiate that longing thirst for knowledge, especially for that kind of knowledge that would 4:4: PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. relieve the pains and aches, and mitigate the sufferings of his fellow- mortals. Hence, in adopting the principles of nature as his guide, he has ever come in contact with the prejudices of creeds, and wherever he has adopted a correct principle, in regard to the laws of life and health, as a matter of true therapeutics only, he has ever been subjected to the grossest persecutions that could emanate from a low, under- handed rivalry. In illustration of this point, then, we have ever maintained, and do now, that symptoms are not diseases ; they are only an indication of something back in the great chain of causes. In the early part of our professional career we were convinced of this, and stood alone in dis- seminating it to those who consulted us, and attempted to explain the causes for these many mysterious and intricate symptoms of the fell serpentine disease that lay there in ambush, long, long back in the great hidden chain of causes — ah ! back in the mind — moral causes ex- isting in the passions, which can not be explained in a word, but would require volumes, a life-long effort to depict to the perceptions of man- kind the causes of this premature death. This organism which God in his infinite wisdom has made, is so wonderful in its structure that it bids defiance even to the investigations of man, to faithfully fathom, in one short life, and which, to a reflective and comprehensive observer of this mysterious body of ours, is a sufficient indication that we should guard and develop it with the most scrupulous fidelity in order to have it to fulfill that aim and design of Omnipotent wisdom, of further de- veloping here in this earthly sphere that immortality which it contains, for nobler and higher purposes, than to accomplish its own destruction so sacrilegiously, so ignominiously, as we daily witness in the offering up and sacrifice of our children and friends, while but yet on the brink of human existence by their unhallowed pandering to appetite and passion. To talk about the symptoms of Tubercular Consumption without knowing the causes of the symptoms, would be as futile as for man to undertake, of himself, to organize a world or a cosmos out of the dark, mysterious chaos of those elements which once lay in the darkness of night, but which are now bounding through our veins and arteries, nourishing and enshrining, human intelligence, and subject to organic laws. When will American people divest themselves of the abuses of old allopathic ideas, namely, that symptoms in themselves are diseases ? We again repeat they are nothing but indications of something that lies behind. Suppose the lungs are filled with tubercles — suppose the throat and bronchial mucous surfaces are inflamed and deranged in their secretions and functions, likewise the stomach, the great labora- PULMONAKY CONSUMPTION. 45 tory of the pabulum of life, the blood — ah ! and the heart, too, which is a great organ, comprising a series of combined muscles, which, like a powerful force-pump, carries it day and night, yet so mysteriously to the common observer, as those mysterious passions are the causes for the latent diseases that we have just depicted, during three-score years and ten, as it may be. What does it all mean ? If these organs, and this one important organ, is diseased in its function or its organism, and the victims die, as they do every day, and it is published in the newspapers, " Died of heart disease" — this is the grand verdict of the coroner's inquest ! Does it not leave every one as much in the dark as before, as to what caused the victims' hearts to be diseased ? So long as you will misuse the wonderful gifts of God, your intel- lect, comprehension, and reason in not studying and knowing what are the causes of these symptoms and the symptoms of Consumption, do you arrive any nearer at the cure ? It is an old adage, but neverthe- less true, " that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." People must learn, then, whether they learn it from the author as a progressive, innovative physician ; they must learn it, sooner or later, that physicians do not carry human health in their pockets or saddle- bags, nor do they, if they write a prescription in mongrel Latin, headed by the mysterious Ijfc , and finished with the equally as much mys- terious Q. S. for a tail, that it does not mean health. It would be a libel upon God Almighty himself to say so. People must and will understand that God, who made man in his own image, with this wonderful, mysterious organism, that health can only result from a harmonious action and exercise of every organ and function of this mysterious body ; that though they may " live as they list," and go on with all the sacrilegious abuses of these mysterious passions, intoxicate reason herself, and bring upon themselves " destruction by the works of their hands," and then think that they can go to an apothecary's shop with this mysterious recipe, to regain their lost health there, and thus compensate for violating the organic laws of life and health in this ig- nominious manner, or think of getting it from their old fogy physicians — I say it would be a libel upon Almighty God himself. Understand, then, as the emphatic gospel of nature, that human health is governed and controlled by inexorable laws ; for those laws were made by Omnipotence himself, and they can not be taken into our hands and suspended at our will, for the purpose of pandering to the gratification of our appetites and our passions, and at other times, when satiated, resumed again, as the will and act of divine wisdom, (emanating from that throne in heaven,) whose superior intelligence, before he created us, saw the beginning and end of human life and health in one harmonious chain. 46 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. The mysterious passions of our nature that we have hinted at as being- the cause of our own destruction, were designed by a bountiful Providence equally as much for our happiness when kept in abeyance, and controlled by our reason. Such was the knowledge of human health and happiness in the days of the prophets, centuries before the Saviour himself. Is it not humiliating to learn that in this respect, we have not advanced to, much less beyond their knowledge ? " Seek not death in the errors of your life, and pull not upon yourselves destruc- tion with the works of your hands." "WHAT IS TUBERCULAR CONSUMPTION? Having stated in the preceding chapter what were some of the more prominent and ominous symptoms of the fell destroyer of man- kind, we now proceed to consider what is Tubercular Consumption, for we base our motives of writing particularly upon this fact, namely, that all persons should understand themselves in regard to their physical education — in regard to the causes and effects, and be capable of tracing in themselves, unaided by any physician, effects to their ap- propriate causes. But without their understanding what constitutes Tubercular Consumption and its many causes, the large majority of mankind would realize but little, we fear, in understanding the symp- toms alone ; for it ever has been, and will be hereafter the same case, a fact that mankind generally have neglected to attend to themselves in the incipient stage of this disease, when it is perfectly curable, and have only sought aid when it had run its course, and assumed some of its more aggravated conditions — generally in what we have de- nominated the third stage of the disease, when, for the most part it becomes incurable, for this reason, that the lungs themselves have be- come disorganized. Understand, therefore, what we mean as we carry you along with us — we mean to say that all forms of Consump- tion, and they are many, are curable by the skillful aid of science. When an organ is affected by the disease in its material structure, when the lungs are disorganized completely by the softening down of those tubercles, and the lun^s themselves have become ulcerated as the consequence, and the patient is expectorating continually his own lungs, then, in this condition, in the very large majority of instances, PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 47 it is beyond the reach of man to restore that structure which required omnipotent wisdom to devise. You will understand, then, that for the mass of the people it is ab- solutely necessary that they understand the causes for effects ; for the wisest method to cure is the removal or avoidance of a cause of the effects, bringing us to an old but true adage, namely, that " an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." This is so in every disease, but still more strikingly so in regard to this fell destroyer of mankind — Consumption — for this very reason, that if people would avoid the causes, live as they should live, consistently with the laws of organic life, in three generations Tubercular Consumption could be entirely extinguished, in so far as it is now, in many instances, an inherited disease, for the reason that many victims of Tubercular Consump- tion inherit a predisposition to it on the part of their parents or an- cestors ; it is no evidence whatever that the malady is not acquired by pernicious habits of life, by a constant violation of the absolute laws of life and health. To such an extent is it contracted in this way, in the United States at least, that in more than one half the instances that we have witnessed, it has been the offspring of pernicious habits of life. So much, then, in regard to the importance of every one un- derstanding the cause of effects. Let us repeat, then, what is Tu- bercular Consumption ? Tubercles are little minute bodies, of a cheese or curd-like substance, deposited generally in the air-cells of the lungs. In their commencement they are extremely small, resem- bling millet-seeds, hence the name of miliary tubercles. They assume various colors, according to the dif- ferent processes and stages of their development, and the peculiar con- stitutional condition of the victim in whom they make their appear- ance. For the most part, they are grayish at the commencement ; as they progress they become the color of cheese, or yellowish in their na- ture at the time of softening. But tubercles, these hard seed like ex- traneous, or foreign substances that we see so generally in the lungs of Section of Lung, showing Tubercular de- posit and a cavern in the act of healing. 48 PULMONAEY CONSUMPTION. people, and which, by common consent, constitutes Consumption, are not, by any means, confined to the lungs alone ; they are found in the brain, in the glands of the throat, and the mucous membranes and air- passages. In infants and children they are found extensively in the glands of the bowels throughout, especially that portion of the bowels known as the mesentery, and give rise to that tumid, glandular, hard formation of pus. In younger children this is called swelling of the mesenteric glands. They appear in other forms, in swelling of the different glands of the throat and neck ; they appear in the blood, and give rise to scrofulous ulceration of the spine, in hip-joint disease, in swellings of the knee, in dropsical effusions of the eyelids, oedema, or swelling of the ankles, which characterize many cases of Consumption. The reader, then, will perceive by this that Tubercular Consumption is not a disease by any means confined to the lungs alone, though' in our language, as we have previously expressed it, it manifests itself in the chest, and the lungs receive the onus or force of action. But why this comes in these instances is because they have weakened and con- taminated their lungs by the exclusion of pure air, by the compression of the chest and weakening and irritating their lungs, so much so, that they have only invited this insidious disease to locate in the lungs more than in the other organs of the body. But such is not the case in earlier life and in infancy, when the tender mother is suddenly called to see her offspring expire in violent convulsions and spasms, or is stricken clown, as it were, in a moment, with stupor, congestion of the brain, or dropsy of the brain, called by the faculty, who are ever tena- cious of making themselves appear wise by great names, so asjto keep the people more in ignorance, Hydrocephalus, a great name you will say, to express an effusion of water in the ventricles of the brain, and this is all it means ; equally so when the person is suffocated by water in the pleural cavity of the chest. The reader will recollect here that the author has mentioned that he had been twice to the gates of the grave with this peculiar form of Consumption, known as Hydro-thorax, or dropsy of the chest. Now, all these high-sounding and learned names mean nothing more or less than a tubercular or scrofulous de- posit in one or other of these vital organs of the body, which cause premature death in one or other of those mysterious forms of Con- sumption, for all belong to the same class and come in the same cate- gory. They exist in the great chain of cause and effect, and are traced back by pathologists and physiologists, and those that study animal chemistry under the use of the microscope, to a scrofulous condition of the blood, and that condition constitutes a tubercular deposit in the lungs. PULMONARY CONSUMPTION". 49 But the 'cute reader will ask the question : If tubercles are extran- eous and unnatural formations, and are deposited in these little hard semi-transparent seed, curd, cheese-like, or other formation of pus in the lungs, where do they come from ? why should they be deposited in the lungs ? or why exist in the body ? This is the grand and im- portant question ; for when this is defined, it tells the whole story com- pletely as to the cause of Tubercular Consumption. Before tubercles are deposited in the lungs or any part of the body, they exist in the blood in a fluid state, and they go the rounds of the blood, in the cir- culation, through every part of the physical organism, as often as the blood circulates through every artery and vein of the body, and it is said it does do so every three or four minutes, and thus are carried wherever the blood is capable of going, and why should it not be de- posited in the brain, in the bowels, in the larger cavities of the chest, in the throat, and other glands that line the mucous surfaces, not only of the respiratory organs, but the whole alimentary canal itself, which, in an adult, is thirty-four or six feet in length. The reader, then, will see the extent of surface and the extent in the physical structure upon which this morbid matter can be deposited, and take its deadly root. This, then, as we have before said, brings us to a most important consideration of our subject : What is the cause of this peculiar forma- tion existing in the blood before it is deposited into the lungs, or other parts of the body ? 4 50 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. CAUSES OF TUBERCULAR CONSUMPTION. Amo^g the most prominent and general causes for this morbid con- dition of the blood, which constitutes the scrofulous or tubercular diathesis, is the breathing of bad, vitiated, or confined air. In the second place, the use of bad, pernicious diet — a diet not cal- culated to afford the material, nutritive elements designed by Omnipo- tent wisdom to build up the vital structure of man. In the third place, a direct and constant violation of the absolute laws of the physical organism, in relation to light and heat, tempera- ture, dress, and the external care and management of the body. In the fourth place, in the United States especially, the most gene- ral cause for the early decline and extensive ravages of Consumption, in all its various forms combined, we mean, is a perversion of the pro- pensities, and awful abuse of the body, by pandering to the passions in early childhood and in youth, and the abuses that result therefrom. To such an extent does this last-named cause prevail, in the United States, at least, that it should not be classed in reality in the fourth consideration of causes were it not, that we could not exist five minutes without air, yet, we hesitate not to say, that, though it operates insidiously, it is ultimately as fatal in causing the extinction of life, as though the victims were excluded from the air, and death was produced by immediate suffocation. In the first case it is more speedy, to be sure, but the procrastination in the other case involves untold suffering to the victim — sufferings and horrors that no pen can adequately describe, and these, in the first instance, he escapes, though the result in each case is the same. But the general reader, the invalid, and the victim of Tubercular Consumption, can not perceive the importance of maintaining a healthy function of the lungs and organs of respiration, without possessing some definite, comprehensive knowledge of their anatomical structure. To this end, to enable the reader to comprehend more easily, we introduce, by way of illustration, the annexed cut representing the lungs, the heart, and the organs of respiration and circulation com- PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 51 bined. The lungs are represented as two large lobes, situated on each side of the heart, filling, with the heart, the entire cavity of the bony chest. They are composed of minute air-cells. Their number has been computed by Keil, an anatom- ist much distinguish- ed for his attain- ments, at 1,744,000,- 000 — many millions. A German anatomist, Lieberkuhn, repre- sents their extent of surface to be 20,000 square feet. Now, a little reflection on the part of the reader will enable him to perceive that this wonderful structure of the lungs could not have been de- signed by Omnipo- tent wisdom other than to fulfill the most important pur- poses. The question arises, for what purpose was this intricate, ex- tensive structure designed ? We reply, as it is but too evident to every one if they would only take it into consideration, for the pur- pose of vitalizing and sustaining the physical body. But how is this done ? Every person knows that they must breathe, or else they would soon suffocate, but not one person in a thousand understands for what purpose they do breathe, or realizes what changes are pro- duced by breathing to sustain the body, and to maintain it in life and health. He will understand, therefore, that the lungs, the heart, the respiratory organs, and the circulating system are made in relation to the external law of the atmosphere, and the atmosphere must be inhaled in its purity, and constantly, to disengage from the blood the carbon or poisonous principles ; for after our food has entered the stomach, and has been converted into chyle, and becomes assimilated into the blood for the purpose of building up all the tissues of the body, and after this nutrition has been carried to every part of the body, through the circulating system, it becomes contaminated with 52 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. carbon or other decomposed principles of the system. Therefore, it will be understood that the physical organism is constantly, every moment of our being, from the time of conception in the mother's womb, until death itself, undergoing decomposition, and that animal life and existence consist in a harmonious action of the vital and chemical principles. Nutrition is taken into the stomach, and con- verted, by the process above-named, if the organs are in a healthy condition to do so, for the purpose of sustaining this continued de- composition or wasting of the system, through the circulation of the blood. As the blood, in its rounds of circulation throughout the whole extent of the body, distributes its vitality and nutrition, it collects, at the same time, the worn-out, decomposed, and poisonous principles of the body, w T hich become again absorbed into the blood, and which, you will understand, is carbon, and is to be returned to the lungs, to be in turn disengaged through this large extent of surface of air-cells, in the shape of carbonic-acid gas. For though the principle of nutri- tion is converted into solids, muscles, nerve-tissue, the bony structure, cartilage, hair, and every part of the organization, it is again, after it has done its work, disengaged by the lungs in a gaseous form. But to one who has no knowledge of physiology — who has never considered nor studied the laws of life — this may appear wonderful — too wonder- ful even for their comprehension. But such is not the case, for it can be easily studied and understood by every one in a short space of time, provided they felt an interest in and the importance of doing so The way the process is completed is by the absorption of the oxygen of the atmosphere, through those delicate tissues of the air-cells of the lungs. The tissues themselves are so thin and so delicate, that at the same instant of time that they allow the external atmosphere or oxygen to pass in, they also permit the carbon to pass out or become disengaged through the same tissue, in the shape of carbonic-acid gas. And yet, while this process is going on, of liberating the carbon and imbibing the oxygen from the atmosphere, through this wonderfully delicate structure, if they are maintained in health and integrity, the circulation is kept up through all its parts in their appropriate number of vessels, without exudation. When the reader has a definite comprehension of this wonderful mechanism, the extent of its surface, its delicate nature, and that all these air-cells are permeated by arteries for the purpose, in the first instance, of oxygenating or vitalizing the blood, and, in the second, for again returning it, through the veins, to the same extent of surface, for the purpose of disengaging the poisonous, worn-out materials of the body, he can have some conception of the importance of this great PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 53 vital function, at the same time the cause for tubercular deposit in the lungs, when the healthy function has been perverted by the de- privation of fresh air, and by the breathing of bad, poisonous, or confined air — by mechanical pressure upon the chest and compression of the lungs, thereby producing obstruction in the circulation, as well as compressing these delicate air-cells, so much so, that no circulation is carried to them, nor no disengagement of this carbon and poisonous material can take place throughout this extent of delicate surface. These delicate air-cells become filled and consolidated, and when so filled with tubercular deposit, become congested, or filled with blood from external cold, which repels the blood from their superficial ves- sels, and when this takes place, the lungs are no longer able to carry on their function of breathing air, and the victim becomes short- breathed or incapacitated for breathing at all. But the question arises here, what is the cause of this tubercular deposir, which, we have previously said, takes place in the blood ? The cause is depriving the lungs of fresh air and the exclusion of oxygen, which is the vitalizing principle of the blood, and which alone constitutes a healthy process of assimilation of our food into healthy blood, which only can be done on the surface of the air-cells. Want of breathing pure air, not breathing the requisite oxygen to vitalize the blood, the blood then becomes poisoned and incapable of longer sustaining the organism or building up its tissues by its appropriate elementary principles. It will be understood that this physical or- ganism is made up from sixty-four elements which the chemist calls primates. Among these sixty-four primary elements, albumen, fibrine, nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon are the principal, and stand foremost among the rest, and form the basis of the structure. The next important principles are phosphates and carbonates of lime and soda, with salts of potash, iron, and other materials. The carbon which exists in the fat of meat, in sugar, in starch, and what are called non-nitrogenous articles of food, are craved and taken into the stomach for the sole purpose of keeping up a combustion and fire in the system. This is why we require and crave the fat of meat, or carbon in some one of its forms, in cold weather and winter. It is for this reason that the Esquimaux takes his train and seal-oil, (for the want of which he would freeze,) namely, for the purpose of burning him up. The same combustion is kept up in our system, as in a stove, by the contact of oxygen through the lungs with the car- bon in the circulation. The stomach is where food is deposited — the lungs where it is burnt up. This process of combustion, again, is for the purpose of maintaining 54 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. the natural temperature of the body, which is ninety-eight or one hundred degrees. The nitrogen and other materials mentioned, are to sustain and build up their appropriate organs and tissues of the body ; nitrogen is required to form muscle — phosphate to build up the brain and nerve system. It is highly essential, therefore, that they be taken in their appropriate quantity, and such food should be eaten as contains all these articles, or else the blood suffers for want of those appropriate elementary materials not being taken, or if taken, not digested and converted into healthy chyle, or healthily assimilated into blood ; it is this that constitutes and begets the form- ation of tubercles. This is the condition of the blood that we 'call tubercular, or, in other words, scrofulous diathesis ; for the scrofulous condition of the system, as we have before said, is the same as the tubercular condition — the one will cause the other — it is one and the same thing. It only deposits itself in the lungs because the lungs have been weakened and impaired in their structure and function by abuse, by perversion, by bad management, the exclusion of pure, and breathing of bad air — these are the causes which lead to their deposition in the lungs. In other instances, where other parts of the body are enfeebled and delicate, it takes its onus of action in the shape of abscesses, ulcerations of the spine, joints, or glands of the throat. But now we must go back a little, that the reader may not forget the importance of this wonderful structure that we began to describe. We have said that the lungs and respiratory organs were constructed in relation to the external law of the atmosphere, and for the express purpose of breathing air in its utmost purity, in order to vitalize and purify the blood. In order that this law shall be fulfilled, and the system maintained in health, it follows that the lungs must maintain their healthy function ; for, according to the extent that they are capable of fulfilling this function, to the same extent is the body main- tained in health. It is well known that, just in proportion to the depth and capacity of the lungs and vital organs of the body, is the body perfected in its structure and maintained and strength is developed. It is the ability to breathe deeply and extensively large quantities of air ? that gives force not only to ourselves but to every animal. It is this that gives swiftness to the race-horse ; it is this function, in perfection, that gives us power of endurance, or in other words, long wind. The birds that fly the most rapidly and the highest are known to have large, capacious lungs, in proportion to their bodies; and just in proportion to the capacity of their lungs, and their velocity of flight, is the rapidity of their breathing and the temperature of their blood increased ; so PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 55 that the eagle, and many other birds, have a temperature of one hun- dred and six to one hundred and eight and one hundred and twelve de- grees. It follows, then, according to this law, that just in proportion as the lungs are obstructed and incapacitated in their function, by not using them properly, not inflating the air-cells, by artificial compression, bad posture, confinement of the chest, etc., so that the air is not in. haled ; then the blood becomes poisoned in its elements and diminished in its temperature ; hence the cause of diminished temperature in the feet, limbs, and surface of the scrofulous and consumptive. Every per- son is aware that when they are shut up closely and excluded from the external atmosphere, and inhale their own breath for a length of time, or other noxious gases, how important it is to have pure air, and they know, too, that suffocation or strangulation takes place by the reten- tion alone of this carbon and mephitic principle of the blood. Yet, seeing the great importance of fresh air, which God in his infinite wis- dom created and constituted the first grand principle of our physical life and existence, they will shut it out of their lungs in every conceiv- able manner, as though they taxed their ingenuity to devise means, by every nicety of art and construction, to shut God's atmosphere out of their lungs ! There is scarcely a father or mother — even in the light, and the knowledge of these truths, natural laws, and effects — but, what will retire at night in a little seven-by-nine bedroom, and not only slmt themselves up, but will also include two, three, sometimes five child- ren, all in this small room ! No window or door is opened for the admittance of air, and frequently every crack and chink are calked and stopped, to exclude this angel-messenger of life and health. They retire in good health, feeling well, in buoyancy of spirits ; they awake in the morning with extreme headache, swollen eyes, tumid faces, weak, debilitated, sickened, and incapacitated, as it were, to arise; and they will go on in this way night after night, day after day, year after year, without ever asking themselves the question, what can be the cause of all these pains, sudden depressions, and sickness ? So little reflection is used, though they know the facts, too, in regard to causes for effects. Every pair of lungs will inhale and exhaust sixty hogsheads of air in twenty-four hours. At each breath, when breathing is natural and healthy, with a full inflation of the lungs, a pint of air is taken in. Each person breathes naturally eighteen times in a minute. With the inhalation of this pint of air, a corresponding disengagement of a pint of carbonic-acid gas should be evolved from the lungs. Making 56 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. the computation in cubic inches and cubic feet, how long would it take for one person, even in an ordinary bedroom, with the windows closed, after retiring at night, to consume every atom of pure air that is in the room ? One hour would not elapse ere the principal part of the vitality of such a room would be consumed by one person, and the re- mainder of the night, he would respire, over and over again, his own poisonous breath (carbonic-acid gas) back again into the lungs, to con- taminate the blood, and, after going the rounds of the circulation, poison the brain, lungs, and nervous system, and prostrate the whole vital energies. The little air that may find its way through the cracks and crevices, in many instances is barely sufficient to maintain life until morning. "What must be the consequence, then, where three or four occupy such a bedroom as is usually the case ? Here we have evidence, when reflection and reason are used, of the causes for Tubercular Consumption. Dr. George Combe mentions in his Constitution of Man, an instance of two sons, both of healthy parentage, that were thrown into Pulmonary Consumption in early life, (of which they died,) by sleeping in a little bed-closet, admitting air only through one pane of glass. But we need not go to Scotland to quote such authority ; we do so only because it gives weight with many. We find instances enough of this in every-day life, in almost every family and town throughout the whole United States. Seeing, then, that one third part of our physical existence is spent in sleep, and that air is just as necessary at night as in the day-time, we should be showing some wisdom to arrange our sleeping rooms so as to have them the largest in the house. Contrived according to scien- tific principles of ventilation, to secure a current of pure air through them continually, which can be done without any liability or exposure of the person to cold. But what is the case ? Houses are so con- structed that the sleeping apartments are made the smallest, and the parlors, which are occupied but a very little time, receiving a few fashionable visitors occasionally, are made large and airy, made to please the eyes of others and to gratify a perverted taste and the caprices of fashion, while the owners of them will go into a small, pent-up bedroom, to poison this organism which God has given them on trust, for the purpose of shuting out that vitality which he has every where so bountifully provided, without money and without price. It may be well to enforce upon the mind of the reader the great importance of fresh air, and, to show the fatality attending the exclusion of it from our houses, to mention the well-known instance of the black- PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 57 hole in Calcutta, in which one hundred and forty-six British soldiers were imprisoned at night, in a room only eighteen feet square, having but one small window on one side, without any ventilation whatever ; of this number, twenty-three only remained alive in the morning ! Imagine what must have been their sufferings, shut up of a hot sum- mer's night, in the climate of Bengal, in a room eighteen feet in size ! Before the expiration of the first hour, the most intense alarm and ex- citement prevailed among the suffering, suffocating soldiers. But the tyrant who had incarcerated them was not capable of any commiser- ation for them, nor aroused to any exertions for their relief. History tells us that their sufferings were intense and agonizing in the extreme. But this only illustrates, in an aggravated manner, the principle that we have before mentioned, which nearly every father and mother in the community takes upon themselves to exercise toward their offspring, the exclusion of God's vital air from the lungs. Do Ave wonder, then, that we have Tubercular Consumption to the awful extent and fatality that we have it ? To such an extent will confined air generate the scrofulous diathesis, and cause tubercles to be deposited in the lungs, that cows kept in stalls, confined from the air, invariably have tubercles formed in their lungs. This is known to be the case in the city of New- York, where cows are kept in stalls, and fed on distillers' slops, for the purpose of supplying the citizens with milk. They become emaciated, debilitated and diseased, yet their milk is sold to feed and nourish children ; hence the tubercles are fed to children in the swill-milk of these diseased cows. Monkeys, tigers, lions, and other animals that are kept in menageries, all die from tuber- cles in the lungs, produced by inhaling confined air. 58 PULMONAKY CONSUMPTION. %MI $tttk% Next in Importance to Pure Air for the Sustaining of our Phy- sical Existence come Heat and Light, The reader will start at this, if he stops and reflects, as he should do, upon the imperative requisites for sustaining physical existence. It is not nourishment that we most need after we are brought into this world. It is not food. Is it not warmth ? The infant can live many- hours without nourishment ; it can not live three minutes without air, as we have sufficiently shown. In the next place to air, then, it is warmth and temperature that must be sustained, or else, in a little while, fatal congestion and col- lapse would ensue. In a brief work like this, as we have before hinted, we can not stop to carry out in full detail (as we purpose doing in a larger work on The Science of Human Life and Physical Education) the various ways in which the laws of life are violated at the commencement even of our infant existence. One would not think, then, seeing the vital importance of the func- tions of the lungs, that our kind mother or nurse would begin the very first hour of our existence to compress the chest, confine the dia- phragm, and cramp the abdomen with a girdle or band, extended the fall length of the body, thereby preventing, in the large majority of instances, at the very onset of our infant life, the fall expansion of the lungs and the descent of the diaphragm. Upon this point we shall dwell at full length in the work just al- luded to, in which we shall explain and illustrate the many ingenuities of dress adopted from infancy through girlhood up to maturer years, to cramp and confine the chest, and distort it from that perfect, sym- metrical shape and form which nature gave it. We shall dwell upon the effects of the corset, the stays, the bust, the boards, whalebones, steel springs, eyelets, cords, and other paraphernalia, equal almost to that which rigs a ship designed to navigate the ocean. Ingenuity, as it were, in this department, has been taxed almost to exhaustion, to devise means to torture, contract, and pervert that beau- PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 59 tiful symmetry made after the image of our mother, Eve, but which now can rarely be met with in the United States. Even the painter or artist, who needs a fine model to illustrate his work of art, has to cross the Atlantic and go to Italy to find a model of the Venus de Medici, who alone embodies a natural waist and chest. This may be thought a serious digression from the second position of causes which we had just commenced to explain. But it is not the case when you rightly understand that the maintenance of the heat of the body depends upon a full expansion of the chest, and the ability to breathe deeply ; for as we have before said, our food, when taken into the stomach, commonly generates heat or temperature to sustain the warmth of the body at the lungs. Then, I ask, if the chest is com- pressed and the lungs prevented from fulfilling their function, does it not necessarily follow, to a moral certainty, that temperature is not gene- rated, but arrested at once ? By this we design to show, in the second place, that two of the most important laws of our being are violated at the very first hour of our existence. The little being is ushered from its mother's womb, where it has been sustained by a temperature of one hundred and two degrees for nine months — most frequently birth takes place in winter and the colder seasons of the year — it is ushered from a temperature of one hundred and two degrees into existence when the temperature not unfrequently is at zero, or a long way below freezing-point out of doors, and we venture to say, in many houses it is at the freezing-point. Ah ! what a change ! Can it be realized ? Frequently the change is seventy degrees which this little offspring is subjected to in one moment of time. In many instances, also, its body often receives but the slightest amount of covering, not unfrequently not the least amount of flannel, but instead a cotton band or garment compressed around its body — its arms, extremities, and neck are left bare and uncovered. Let us pause for one moment and take into serious consideration the great and sudden change that this delicate offspring is subjected to in one moment of time. Let us pause, farther, and consider the awful responsibility on the parts of the parents who have been the means of ushering into physical life this innocent and dependent being. It has been propagated and produced here entirely unasked for by itself. It is helpless and at the mercy of those who have produced it, and into whose hands it falls. Let the mother of this delicate and de- pendent child conceive this. What must be her susceptibilities, and what would be the direful effects of such a sudden change upon her, in ordinary times, or even in child-birth, of being subjected in one moment of time to a change of fifty, sixty, or seventy degrees? I need 60 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. not follow up this argument ; it can easily be tested and illustrated by every one individually, especially by those who are delicate, by step- ping suddenly from a warm bed or room heated at eighty, ninety, or a hundred degrees, oat of doors in the winter-time, when the ther- mometer stands at zero. Ah ! will you not reflect upon the awful re- sponsibility that you owe your offspring ? What right have you to be- come a mother and voluntarily be the means of bringing into existence an offspring unsolicited, and then jeopardize its life in this manner at the very brink of its existence ? After the sudden and serious depression of temperature that the infant has been subjected to, do we wonder that so many die in the early days of infantile life ? Every one should know that they are constituted in regard to a law of heat and temperature of 98° or 100°, and that in order to have health, develop healthy physical organism, and maintain a harmonious function of the organs of the body, it becomes absolutely necessary to maintain this temperature, and that in equanimity throughout our natural life. But I ask is this done in one instance in a thou sand — I had better say ten thousand ? No doubt infants and children, like adults, are occasionally over- heated. This is another abuse of the same law, in another form, and is no argument for the abuse of it on the opposite hand, by suddenly de- pressing this vital temperature, fighting against this absolute law of our being. But such is the case with every child. Every one knows that children are so dressed to maintain the whims and freaks of fashion and pride, that they are kept through infancy and childhood in a state of semi-nudity. The limbs, the extremities, and in the large majority of in- stances, the whole entire upper part of the chest — the seat of vitality — is exposed to the cold blasts of a wintry wind. Children are so dressed, and walk the streets with their blue, naked arms and legs, their blood all chilled and driven from the surface, to be carried to the heart and the lungs, to chill those organs so by the depression of this vital tem- perature ; this is constantly inculcated and carried out by vain, igno- rant, and arrogant mothers. In this manner, then, is the second great law of our physical life violated from the cradle, until the infant or the child, or perchance, if it struggles beyond childhood to adolescence, it is consigned to a pre- mature grave by Tubercular Consumption. It has been our duty many times, when in general practice, to be suddenly summoned from a warm bed in the middle of a winter's night, to see some child who had been suddenly attacked with the croup. Ah ! intelligent reader, do you know what is a croup ? Can PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 61 you realize the untold miseries expressed in this one word ? At the mention of it, many and many a fond mother will start into tears, close her arms in anguish, and yearn for the little offspring that she had given birth to, that she had nurtured with the fondest hopes and an- ticipations of its future, when that offspring was suddenly cut down with this fatal destroyer — membranous croup. Well do I recollect, when very young and very delicate in health, I went with my preceptor to visit a child in the agonies of death from this disease. The child was nursed by an elder sister. The mother was one of those timid women who could not bear to see any suffering on the part of her children without much mental distraction ensuing at once — in other words, she had no fortitude to be a mother, conse- quently the care of this little sufferer devolved upon an elder sister. Well, myself and preceptor were over the cradle of this child, wit- nessing the heavings of its bosom gasping for breath, its counten- ance livid and swollen, and so great was its distress that it went into convulsions ; every muscle of its little body was rigid, its mouth and features distorted, its tongue protruding, its eyes turned as if in death itself, during the awful agonies it underwent in those convulsions that attend this horrid disease. For the moment, the sister gave vent to grief and tears ; the scene, for the moment, would have bid defiance to the pencil of the skillful artist ! For myself, being in such delicate health, it wrought upon my feelings, and so striking was the impres- sion which it made upon my young mind at the time, that it is not at present, nor ever will, I doubt, be erased. So intensely did this sight affect me at the time, that my youthful ardor for the profession which I had embraced was, for the time being, almost blunted. The reader, who feels interested, will ask the question, What is mem- braneous croup ? We have, in a preceding section, alluded to a dis- ease that is now sweeping off infants and children at a direful rate, under the name of diphtheria, and have taken occasion to say that this diphtheria was but another name for membraneous croup ; for, with some modifications, it is one and the same thing. We shall give a section upon this disease in this work, but will briefly say here, to satisfy the longings and expectations of the interested reader, that children are externally attacked with a violent inflammation, affecting the membranes of the throat, the larynx, the trachea or wind-pipe, and this inflammation is so intense that an exudation of lymph or fibrinous matter is constantly poured out from the mucous membranes and glands in such a manner that a new membrane, a false one, is rapidly formed. This disease, so very fatal, is only curable by the best and most 62 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. skillful management, when taken in its early stages. But how does it produce death ? you will ask. It produces death in the same manner as though a ligature was put about the neck, and the person is suffo- cated thereby, by the prevention of any air entering into the lungs; just as the more lingering and silent form of Consumption is produced at later periods of life, when God's vital air has been shut out from the lungs and the chest, by the paraphernalia of art and the willful violation of this absolute law of our life, just as we have previously depicted. But this is not all ; the inflammatory process of the disease causes the most intense constitutional irritation and pain in all the other or- gans of the body. The brain and the whole nervous system is intensi- fied to a most exalted state of irritability ; hence, in the large majority of instances, children that die with croup, die in the agonies of con- vulsions, just as I have depicted in the case that I have alluded to before. This death occurs by this phenomenon of absolute suffocation, from the complete closure and blocking up of the trachea itself, by the false membranes, which is the inevitable result when convulsions do not occur to occasion it before. In either case, the reader may conceive something of what must be the agonies and sufferings of these little victims who die so hurriedly, so prematurely, by membraneous croup and diphtheria. So intense are their sufferings for hours, and in many instances days, before death puts an end to them. We have seen them gasping and struggling for breath, with an anxious and glaring eye, looking first to its mother, then the nurse, and then in every direction? even to its physician, with looks so intensified with expression, as if imploring that relief which science could not render. Ah ! mothers, parents, what untold horrors, agonies, and sufferings have you brought upon your offspring ! Unasked on their part, you have brought them into this world, and consigned them to all this suffering, by your willful neglect, and you are responsible for all these agonies and this untimely death. How ? By violating those laws that we have just mentioned, particularly the law of temperature ; for no child was ever attacked wdth membraneous croup or diphtheria, but what was allowed to take cold. How can it be otherwise, when kept in this state of semi-nudity in our cold and fickle climate ? God calls upon you to sustain the responsibility that you have taken upon yourselves, and to fulfill that responsibility in the obligations that you owe your offspring. This responsibility does not end, let me assure you, as the physical suffering and agonies of your offspring ends, namely, by the severing of its immortality from this tenement of clay. By such an early and awful doom, you inflict upon vour offspring and PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 63 your children an injury which is not effaced even in its future spiritual existence ; for, in a word, every offspring and every child that goes so prematurely into the spiritual sphere, is unfitted by many years for that position to which they are so rapidly subjected. But I leave this part of your moral duty for your own reflections and your own elimi- nations, as it may be suited to each individual case. I have stated, in the preceding part of this section, that membrane- ous croup, that scrofula, and all the diseases of the blood that I there named, belong to the same great category that we are treating upon, and that they are connecting links in the same chain of causes that I have pointed out, in the blood, caused by a diminution of the temper- ature of the blood, chilling it, and producing a watery, albuminous condition, diminishing its fibrine, its healthy vitality — the red globules — its strength, and thereby producing a preponderance of this element, albumen, which has caused the death of your offspring in another form alone, by an exudation of it on the mucous surface, and produces stran- gulation in the shape of membranous croup, just in the same manner as it does in later periods of life, in tubercular deposition in the lungs, by this albuminous condition of the blood exuded out of its appropriate vessels, on account of its watery, chilled condition, and its not possess- ing its vital momentum of those properties which we have mentioned and illustrated. In thousands of instances, where infants do not die by the awful ravages of this frightful malady, they fall victims to other inflammatory diseases of the respiratory organs, as acute catarrh and bronchitis, as the consequence of violating this law of temperature and chilling of the blood, in the same manner. Of course, the extensive fatality in infantile life, in this manner, comes upon those delicate infants and children more particularly that inherit a predisposition to it on the part of their parents ;. hence their vital powers are feeble even in birth. How much greater the necessity, then, the responsibility which such parents should feel themselves under, after having been the willing agents of bringing into existence this offspring, to nurture and nourish them with the most scrupulous fidelity to the laws of their physical being, instead of violating them so grossly at the very dawn of their existence. Those that possess more robust constitutions, and are not so susceptible by hereditary taint, pass on through the period of in- fancy only, in a large number of instances, to acquire a disposition to a little later fatality, of this same disease, from the constant violation of this law of vital temperature that we have illustrated. In a country so cold as ours, with a climate subject to such vicissitudes from warm to cold, cold to warm, dampness and chill constantly supervening upon 64: PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. heat, every one knows, or should know, at least, the importance of guarding the extremities of the body and the surface from the action of this climate, by proper, suitable, woolen covering and garments. But Avhat do we see ? as we before said. Children pass along, in a cold, winter's day, with their limbs and neck exposed to the atmosphere. This is the case in childhood, and in girlhood, in many instances in womanhood ; bare, naked arms ; if covered at all, it is with a bag- sleeve that affords no protection ; the lower limbs covered only by a slight cotton stocking, and a thin-soled shoe, which gives no material warmth or protection against the cold winds and pavements. These and many other agents, which form conductors for readily carrying off the heat as soon as it is generated, and thus causes the temperature of the body, in the limbs at least, of most female children, to be kept a long way below the natural standard. Is it to be wondered, then, that when the female approaches the age of puberty, the constitution does not possess vital power, stamina, and force sufficient to establish that great function, the importance of which we have so graphically delineated in the earlier part of this work, and the non-establishment of which causes the victim to decline into early Consumption ? Suppose, in a few instances, she passes on, and the function is estab- lished, it is but a little while before it becomes irregular, and at length suppressed entirely, as the consequence of continued depression of vital heat, by compression of the chest, insufficient respiration, the breathing of confined air, the neglect of proper clothing ; hence, the blood being chilled continually at its surface, is again driven back, every four minutes, to pass through the heart, the lungs, the uterus, and the female sexual organs, diminished in its temperature ; hence, this im- portant function is suspended or suppressed in this manner, and the blood further undergoes that morbific change in the same process of morbid chemistry that we before pointed out. But the field is too large — it is too scientific and sublime in its na- ture — for it is God in his divinity that is within us, and who, when we devoutly obey his laws, makes existence sweet and life desirable. But the sad consequences of their continued violation, we repeat, are too great to truthfully depict in this brief work. The reader must anticipate its narration in detail, in the work that we have alluded to. PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 65 fjtfntb jftftiatt. Light, the Integral Principle of Heat, forms another one of the Great Laws and Agents essential to our Physical Development, and the consequent' maintenance of Perfect Health, the seclusion from which forms another great cause for Tubercular Consumption. Instances of Tubercular Consumption and Scrofula without num- ber, both in childhood and at later periods of life, have been directly traced to the exclusion of light. Such is the case in a vast number of dwellings in the United States. Those who spend much of their time in damp basements or rooms, invariably take on this scrofulous or tubercular condition, and die from it. These effects have been observed by eminent pathologists in various parts of Europe. Drs. Carswell, Jenner, and many others who have had the opportunity of dissecting tigers, monkeys, and other animals that died in menageries — where they had been secluded from the light — invariably found them to have tubercles in the lungs, an instance never known to them in their natural condition. To such an extent does this seclusion of light and association of darkness figure in the cause of Tubercular Consumption, that it has been generated at will, by Dr. Jenner and others. How ? By secluding rabbits from the light in a damp cellar, when, after a few weeks only, tubercles were found in their lungs. To illustrate what we have just said, we will give some instances : A New-York merchant noticed, in the progress of years, that each successive book-keeper gradually lost his health, and finally died of Consumption, however vigorous and robust he was on entering his service. At length it occurred to him that the little rear room where the books were kept opened into a back-yard, so surrounded by high walls, that no sunshine came into the room from one year's end to an- other. An upper room, well lighted, was immediately prepared, and his clerks had uniform good health ever after. A familiar case to general readers, is derived from medical works, where an entire English family became ill, and all remedies seemed to fail of their usual results, when accidentally a window-glass of the family room was broken, in cold weather. It was not repaired, and 66 PULMONAKY CONSUMPTION. forthwith there was a marked improvement in the health of the inmates. The physician at once traced the connection, discontinued his medi- cines, and ordered that the window-pane should not be repaired. A French lady became ill. The most eminent physicians of her time were called in, but failed to restore her. At length Dupuytren, the Napoleon of physic, was consulted. He noticed that she lived in a dim room, into which the sun never shone ; the house being situated in one of the narrow streets, or rather lanes of Paris. He at once ordered more airy and cheerful apartments, and " all her complaints vanished." The lungs of a dog become tuberculated (consumptive) in a few weeks, if kept confined in a dark cellar. The most common plant grows spindly, pale, and scraggling, if no sunlight fall upon it. The greatest medical names in France, of the last century, regarded sun- shine and pure air as equal agents in restoring and maintaining health. From these facts, which can not be disputed, the most common mind should conclude that cellars, and rooms on the northern side of buildings, or apartments into which the sun does not immediately shine, should never be occupied as family rooms or chambers, or as libraries or " studies." Such apartments are only fit for " stowage " or purposes which never require persons to remain in them over a few minutes at a time. And every intelligent and humane parent will arrange that the family room and chambers shall be the most commo- dious, lightest, and brightest apartments in his dwelling. It is painful and melancholy in the extreme, knowing those laws of life and health as every one does, to see how extensively and willfully they are violated, especially this law of sunshine and light, every day, by the fair sex even. So fearful are they of God's heavenly sunshine, when they walk in the open air, on the street, in the open fields, for fear it will tinge, or seriously embrown their already too pallid faces, they must introduce sun-shades between their faces and this sublime messenger of life and health, which emanates from that globe so many millions of miles distant, set in the firmament so high, and deemed so necessary to shed its benign rays and effulgence over the extent of God's heritage, and the offspring of his paternal care, in all parts of this sublime universe. See her in the parlor, sitting at the window, working some muslin or lace ; she must close the blinds, or sunshade, and tax or dim her optics by straining them to get sufficient light to perform her work, for fear of the same results that we have just men- tioned. Hence, the pernicious influences are carried on in this way, and in thousands of other ways that we can not now mention, until the fatal result is accomplished. PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 67 Every observer of the processes of nature, in the vegetable or ani- mal kingdom, knows that without sunshine and light, nothing of this nature is brought to perfection, or a sufficient maturity to be made use of for food or consumption. The value of heat and sunshine are so well known in producing vegetables and fruits, that where the attain- ment of it can not be had, in a season too short to be accomplished in the open air, means are artificially devised, to concentrate these agents to develop the articles and the objects sought for, prematurely. We repeat, then, that neither vegetation, grain, nor fruits, can be made fit for use without sunshine and light ; they are just as essen- tial to human life, to give color and momentum to the blood, and maintain us in our own health and perfection. Seeing this, then, how willful is the violation that the fair sex take upon themselves — to ex- clude this messenger of their life and consequent happiness. This law of light and sunshine, the integral elements of heat, combined, are imperatively requisite to develop life and a healthy organism, under all circumstances and in every department of the animal kingdom, from the lowest to the highest. We see the most striking consequences in lower animals, when light and sunshine are deprived them. In the subterranean waters of the Carniola, in France, there is found the proteus anguiformis, an animal between the frog and the tadpole. Dr. Edwards, a man of extensive attainments, and, perhaps, one who has made more observations in this department than any other, pro- duced an exactly analogous being — a half-developed frog — by exclud- ing a tadpole, during its growth, from the influence of the light. In our own country, this important physiological fact is more strikingly illus- trated, as is well known by those who have visited the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, where fish are found without eyes. These facts, in the great chain of animal and human existence, show — what ? They show, my readers, the important fact, namely, that every thing in the great chain of nature, from a monad to a monarch, trembles to an infinite law. It should appall us by its magnitude ; it should astound us by its infinite majesty ; for it is none other than was taught by Jesus himself, when he told his disciples, in this world, two thousand years ago, that God, in his infinite wisdom, governed man by laws so minute and yet so powerful, that there was not a hair of our heads that was not numbered, and a sparrow falleth not to the ground without our heavenly Father's knowledge. Let us pause here for a moment's reflection. Let us view the mi- nuteness yet searching power of God's infinite laws in every department of nature, even in the obscure cave in Kentucky, where the first ray of light which dawned upon the world five thousand years ago has 68 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. never reached — these fish, trembling in obedience to every other law where the elements exist, are deficient of those orbs, under the search- ing operation of that law of light, teaching us the moral lesson that orbs were made for light, and that where there is no light no orbs are re- quired for its perception. However blind may be these fish, because they have no light, yet they enjoy all the other blessings of their ex- istence equally as well. But for mankind, to whom light has been given in abundance, and faculties for its perception, to remain willfully blind in relation to those laws that govern their being, affords a source for self-reproach and condemnation, that should cause them to " bow their low forms and hide their starry heads." Those poor mortals who are subjected to tyranny and its controlling influences in society, who are kept down by the power of wealth and the pride of aristocracy, crushed as it were under its iron heel, who are kept benighted and compelled to spend their lives in coal-mines and caverns, elaborating and developing, by their muscular strength and energies, the ore that goes to constitute that wealth which serves to their subversion — for them there is sufficient excuse, because the violation of the law is produced by their subjugation on the part of a superior power, which emanates from, and is sustained by the muscle, bone, and sinew of those poor miners. Their condition in this life is pitiable, and appeals to our commiseration and the sympathy and charity of every intelligent person possessing the attributes of God in his bosom, who enjoys the calm sunshine of these laws. But to us in this free republic, endowed equally alike with the blessings of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, where God's laws of life and light shine equally alike upon the beggar and millionaire, patrician and plebeian, there is no excuse for this willful seclusion. And when suffer- ing comes as the consequence, in pains and aches, distorted features and pallid countenance, in the weakened gait, restless nights, and sleep-disturbed cough — it comes as a monition from kind heaven to tell you that it is but a just penalty for the violation of those impera- tive laws of your physical being. Nature keeps an accurate account current with every person. The great ledger of our account is opened at our birth, and every act, moral, intellectual, and physical, is entered in that book ; a credit is made of each fulfillment of the supreme laws of our being, and every violation, whether the act be one of omission or commission, it is equally the same in its physical effect, and is charged on the debtor side. The supreme exhilaration and enjoyment of life that flows from health, from the harmonious operation and observance of these laws in the organic functions of our being, is the assurance that our account PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 69 in this great ledger is well balanced. But when health vanishes, and pains and aches come upon us, our exercises that once gave us pleasure now become irksome and fatiguing ; the motion of our muscles and our bones and the exercise of our limbs, which once was so pleasurable and gave a zest to life, and made existence sweet and sleep refreshing, by producing gentle fatigue— these pains and aches only come now as a kind monition from Almighty God to tell us that the charges on the debtor side have greatly exceeded the credit. Though hopes are crushed, and our spirits sunken, and life should lose its charms, and time hang heavily upon our hands, we need not murmur at Omnipotence, for he has long since told us, by his kindest messengers, not only through his natural laws, but morally through the Saviour himself, who de- clared that our Father in heaven does not afflict willingly. All pains, sufferings, human woe, and anguish that we here endure, are not, there- fore, malign, but benign, and designed for our moral good. When we have so long and willfully violated those natural laws of our system that the physical harmony can not longer be sustained here for the purposes that he designed, he appeals to our moral faculties, to prepare us for that physical death and that grave which we have so pre- maturely brought about. PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. Among the Concomitant Causes and Precursors of Pulmonary Consumption, stands first and foremost, Catarrh, or, in other words, a Cold. A cold ! that apparently harmless word, so innocently trivial in its sound, that it allures more victims to an untimely grave than all the other causes w r hich we have labored so arduously to graphically de- lineate. The courtesies and civilities of every-day life are so common, and so cheap too, it is considered as nothing when asking after the health of our friend or neighbor, to receive the reply : " I have nothing but a slight cold, which will soon wear off." Happy would it be for the victim — ah ! and perchance too for the friends of that victim — if this was the case! I leave it to the good sense and experience of every reader, if it does not prove, in the large majority of cases, sadly the reverse. How many have found an early grave, and sacrificed the hopes of a prosperous existence, w T hile yet on its threshold, that commenced with a slight cold? I can not better describe this than is already done in the language of a most eloquent writer — from whom I have borrowed in the pre- ceding sections — some graphic delineations of that worm that gnaws at the vitals of so many of the fair sex at least : " Consider a slight cold to be in the nature of a chill, caught by a sudden contact with your grave, or as occasioned by the damp finger of death laid upon you, as it were, to mark you for His, in passing to the more immediate object of his commission. Let this be called croaking, and laughed at as such, by those who are ' awearied of the painful round of life, and are on the look-out for their dismissal from it ;' but be learned off by heart, and remembered as having the force and truth of Gospel, by all those who w r ould 'measure out their span upon the earth,' and are conscious of any constitutional flaw or feeble- ness ; who are distinguished by any such tendency deathward, as long necks, narrow chicken-chests, very fair complexions, exquisite sym- pathy with atmospheric variations, or, in short, exhibit any symptoms of an asthmatic or consumptive character, if they choose to neglect A SLIGHT COLD. " Let those not complain of being bitten by a reptile which they PULMONARY CONSUMPTION". 71 have cherished to maturity in their very bosoms, when they might have crushed it in the egg ! Now, if we call ' a slight cold ' the egg, and pleurisy, inflammation of the lungs, asthma, consumption, the venomous reptile, the matter will be no more than correctly figured. There are many ways in which this 'egg' may be deposited and hatched. Going suddenly, slightly clad, from a heated into a cold at- mosphere, especially if you can contrive to be in a perspiration ; sitting or standing in a draught, however slight; it is the breath of death, reader, and laden with the vapors of the grave ! Lying in damp beds, for there its cold arms shall embrace you ; continuing in wet clothing, and neglecting wet feet ; these, and a hundred thousand others, are some of the ways in which you may slowly, imperceptibly, but surely cherish the creature that shall creep inextricably inward, and lie coiled about your very vitals. Once more, again, again, again I would say, attend to this, all ye who think it a small matter to neglect a slight cold !" What is the meaning, then, of this catarrh that we hear so frequently in nearly every person's mouth, especially this winter ? A catarrh, reader, means no more than a cold, or a " slight cold," as it is generally expressed. But by common consent, in the United States at least, this term is applied to an affection of the nasal organs and the upper part of the throat. Catarrh, in medical language, means an inflamma- tion that follows this cold, which confines itself to the mucous mem- brane or fining membranes of the nostrils and frontal sinus, which is none other than a continuation of the nostrils, a little way up into the anterior portion of the skull, or those projections under the eyebrows. Hence, on taking a bad cold in these parts, a pain is felt at the end of this sinus, about the eyebrows ; also, in some cases, to a very annoying and disagreeable extent. Catarrh, in its first onset, may produce a great dryness, thickening or swelling of those membranes, as it usually does, or may, in other cases, terminate immediately in a sudden, increased secretion, of a thin, watery nature, so profuse and yet so acrid that it makes the nostrils and the lips over which this discharge passes dry, sore, and not unfre- quently corrodes them. The reader will now understand, and com- prehend the magnitude of extent and direful result, in the end, of this disease that we are now speaking of, so carelessly denominated " a slight cold." The mucous membrane, which lines the nostrils backward, and which extends onward and over the w r hole lining membrane of the mouth, the soft palate, the tonsils which are situated on each side of the top of the throat, and so around the glottis, or entrance to the larynx 72 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. — the larynx, by the way, is the organ of the voice, and the top of the windpipe, and that projection that you feel immediately under the chin, and so prominent is it in some cases, that it is called poma Adamis, or Adam's apple. Understand, then, that this mucous mem- brane continues over the glottis, over the valve of the larynx, the epi- glottis, throughout this organ of wonderful construction, whence ema- nates the human voice, and which gives forth a musical sound, so sweet, that it can soothe the savage breast or excite the timid to. shuddering and dismay. It continues downward throughout the whole extent of the trachea or windwipe, and as the windpipe enters the lungs at the top of the breast-bone, it branches. One branch goes to the right lung, the other branch to the left lung, and immediately after they enter their appro- priate lungs, they again divide and subdivide into an almost innumer- able number of branches or tubes, called bronchial tubes, which tubes are the air-tubes that convey God's vital atmosphere to those organs of innumerable cells and wonderful extent of surface which we have aimed so graphically and forcibly to describe to you in the preceding section, on the cause of Tubercular Consumption. But to continue this history ; these lining membranes that we before spoke of, that commence at the nostrils, where is first situated this common cold, or catarrh, extend downward and throughout all these innumerable air-tubes that we have just mentioned. Will the reader not perceive, then, the absolute fact and the phenomena that will occur and must occur by the continuity of action — that this inflammation or cold, in other words, if not arrested at its onset, will continue, by this same law of continuity downward, until it pervades the whole extent of this vast machinery, through the lungs ? Hence, what is spoken of as a common cold, or catarrh, proves fatal in thousands and thousands of instances in this manner. Slight as it may be, and harmless as it is looked upon at the time of taking it on and at its commencement, in just so many instances does it prove fatal by silently passing from its acute stage into that of a more chronic nature, in which all the aggra- vated features of the first stage have worn off, and with it the appre- hensions to any alarm, and it has become, in this second or chronic stage, so silent and gradual in its effects upon the mucous membranes and the glands that line those membranes, over and throughout this whole extent of surface that we have above mentioned, so that the glands themselves become enlarged, or at length put up considerably above the surface of the membrane. The secretion, which at first was thin, watery, and profuse, has now given place to that of a more scanty or tenacious eharacter, or to none at all ; so that instead of expecto- PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 73 rating from the throat or bloAving the morbid secretion from the nos- trils, as in the first commencement of the second stage, this whole sur- face, together with the extent of these glands, may become so sup- pressed in their secretion that the victim is continually hemming, rasp- ing, or trying to clear his throat and the air-passages of that imaginary something which he thinks is lodged there, when the whole pheno- menon of his thus hemming and rasping is occasioned by that dry, glairy inflammation that now pervades the whole extent of apparatus, and which has entirely suppressed the healthy secretion of these glands and mucous membranes. Ah ! were the reader only versed in the anatomy of the parts, as when laid open by the scalpel or knife, after death has supervened upon one of those fatal cases, of what, in the first place was considered a " slight cold," as we have seen in hundreds of cases, and see the parts as they appear after death, laid open to the view, and perceive the wonderful disorganization of structure which is presented, when contrasted with the same organs in a healthy subject, he would almost stand aghast at the consequences of a " slight cold " — a slight catarrh. The careful reader will clearly perceive and comprehend that we have given, in the description above, an account of the diseases which are confined to the organs of respiration, known under the names of quinsy, sore throat, or inflamed, enlarged, and ulcerated tonsils ; throat disease, or follicular disease in the language of the faculty, because the little glands of the fauces situated back or posterior to the root of the tongue are called follicular glands ; laryngitis, which means the same thing, an inflammation, or catarrh of the larynx, trachea, or inflamma- tion of the windpipe ; bronchitis, which is the same disease in the branches of the windpipe, and takes its name from the name of its air- tubes after the windpipe enters the lungs ; all these diseases are one and the same thing, and proceed from one cause, namely, a cold or in- flammation, and only take different names according to the anatomical name of each organ, remembering, at the same time, that the same mucous membrane which commences at the nostril extends downward to the utmost depth and extent of the lungs. Here you have the mean- ing of that high-sounding yet common every-day term, bronchitis, known some years since, when it first began to attract public attention and acquire notoriety, in the United States at least, by the name of clergyman's ail, or clergyman's sore throat. This last-named disease, bronchitis, was so little known some thirty or forty years since, that it was confined almost to clergymen alone. But now, the thoughtful reader will realize that it is so extensive and of such every-day occurrence, that almost every second person that 74 PULMONAKY CONSUMPTION. we meet with has bronchitis. When he considers, therefore, of the wonderful prevalence of these diseases, that we have enumerated in this section, had he not better pause for one moment and reflect upon the awful and more appalling fact that there can be no effect without its antecedent cause, and ask the still far more important question — what can be the cause for such a malady, so all-prevailing that it may- be justly denominated La Maladie JVationale, that is, the national malady. I say, then, some thirty or forty years ago, well in the remembrance of the writer, when he was yet a medical student, he was frequently asked the question by learned men, the literati too : " What is the meaning, doctor, of this disease they call clergymen's sore throat ?" This disease, therefore, so rare such a short time ago, and now so preva- lent and wide-spread, must have a cause as extensive — commensurate with its wonderful effects. What, then, is the cause of all these com- bined maladies ? It has been answered, at the commencement of this section, in one short phrase, " a slight cold ;" and the thrilling context that we append to our preliminary remarks has depicted the melan- choly results of a neglect to cure or remove this " slight cold." If the thoughtful reader will follow us along a little farther in the reflection and interrogation, the question will again arise, as this malady has become so wonderfully prevalent, to compare it with what it was thirty or forty years ago, must it not follow, as a matter of course, too, that the causes or proclivity to take on this disease have increased correspondingly ? I grant this, and acknowledge the truth of the philosophy in what we are aiming to explain to the kind reader and patient, that there is a cause for every effect, and that all physical effects discover an overt violation of the absolute laws of our physical being, namely, the laws of life and health. It is not intended, as we have before hinted, in this brief work, written from motives of philanthropy, to go into detail and show to the reader the almost innumerable number of causes which have grown up within this period of time to give rise to the development of these new forms of disease of the throat and bronchial tubes. The luxurious habits, the change in the nature and construction of modern dwellings and places of business, the methods by which they are heated and warmed, the deficiency of ventilation, confined life, and other habits of our American people ; their sedentary lives, fast and rapid living, their premature development and early excitement of those burning passions of the soul, hurried manner of doing their business, not afford- ing themselves time to take their food properly, hurrying to and from their meals, and bolting their food instead of masticating it, eating of PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. To pastries, confectionery, and scores of other poisonous articles of cook- ery, which are taken into the stomach, incapable of being converted either into healthy chyme or chyle or assimilated into blood; hence, whatever of this character is pnt there is converted into so much poison, and goes into the circulating system to poison the whole vital current and throw back its tide of morbid continuity of action again upon the stomach, the liver, the whole alimentary canal, the digestive organs, the onus of morbid irritation ; it extends upward by the same law of continuity that we above named, until the throat and air-pas- sages are tainted from the poisoned fount of life, and the whole extent of mucous membrane that did not come in the scope of our anatom- ical, philosophical description of the air-passages now, is affected through another source from the stomach upward ; hence the proclivity to take on this slight cold. Catarrh comes from a morbid condition of the stomach, and de- ranged secretions of the liver, constipated or confined bowels, deficient action of the cutaneous exhaling surface, from neglect of ablution and cleanliness, and in other ways ; by breathing confined, contaminated air, that we have before spoken of as being the main cause for Tuber- cular Consumption, poisoning the mucous membranes of these air- passages, together with a thousand other causes that should be men- tioned, and will be in the larger work that we have before alluded to, which is now being prepared for the press likewise. Does the reflecting reader wonder, then, after these brief hints, that we have so many new diseases ? I have alluded to the awful extravagances of dress in our bleak northern climate, subject to the extremes of vicissitudes, the cruel, sacrilegious neglect of clothing and guarding the extremities of the body, and the surface also, by the fair sex in infancy and childhood, and adolescence, together with a thousand other pernicious habits which have been cultivated in the short period of time — namely, thirty or forty years — and which account for the prevalence of these new forms of diseases that we have before mentioned, to wit, the extensive use of tobacco, smoking and chewing; so that hardly a male child passes eight years of age before he is puffing away at a cigar, or has a quid of that baleful, noxious weed snugly stowed away in his cheek, which he rolls from side to side as if it were a sweet morsel of life, when it is an agent of death to him, exciting and stimulating those delicate glands that line the mouth, causing a most inordinate secre- tion of the vital juices, which are spit away as profusely and carelessly by him as water rushes out of the perennial font. Did the same victim or slave estimate the extent to which he has drained the body and the 76 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. blood of its juices, its supply, some twenty years from the time when he first cultivated an appetite for this most noxious of all weeds, to- bacco, he would stand appalled at the aggregate. Some of our pa- tients who consulted us, and whom we treated, at the age of fifty years and upward, had commenced this young, when suffering the untold horrors that followed it — dyspepsia, indigestion, asthma, difficulty of respiration, and other concomitant affections. When we had traced these for them to their appropriate cause, and shown them how they had undermined their constitution, exhausted their strength and health, and made the computation by ounces collected by each day's waste of the vital juices, in this manner, according to each quantum, we esti- mated it on purely mathematical principles, that some of our patients in this length of time had spit away, carelessly and thoughtlessly, from fifty to one hundred hogsheads of these precious juices of the blood — that is, in other words, those juices which are directly secreted from the blood by the poisonous stimulation and morbid secretion of these glands, which never would have taken place had they not cultivated an appetite and a passion for these destroying habits, smoking and chewing tobacco. Of course, as a general thing, smoking and chewing of tobacco ap- ply to males ; but there is also a preponderating number of cases of inveterate throat and bronchial affections, and loss of voice, among the males ; whereas, on the other hand, as an offset for their more sedentary habits of in-door confinement, carelessness of dress on the part of fe- males, do we have a preponderating number of cases of Tubercular Consumption. Causes of Catarrh. Tendency and Dangers of Catarrh. Perhaps we have not been sufficiently explicit in the introductory part of this section, " On the dangers of Catarrh." To do our full duty, however, we should be a little more explicit, and dwell a little longer upon the tendency of catarrh, not only to develop Bronchial but Tu- bercular Consumption also. We have before told the reader, in its appropriate section, that Tubercular Consumption was an offspring of pernicious and artificial habits of living, in as many cases, perhaps, as those who inherited a predisposition to it. So catarrh leads to the development of laryngitis, bronchitis, and ultimately to ulceration or contraction of the bronchial tubes, or the closure of the delicate air-cells of the lungs, causing tubercular and the whole combined forms of Consumption, known as congestion, tuber- cularization, bronchitis, and ulceration of all this structure. PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 77 In some thousand of consumptive patients whom we have examined, we have interrogated them always as to the causes, both acquired and hereditary predisposition ; we know, therefore, from accurate data in our own practical experience, that full one half the cases of Tubercular Consumption that we have examined and prescribed for, for fifteen or twenty years, had their origin in a slight cold or catarrh. Have we not fulfilled, then, the position that we started with — to look upon a slight cold as the egg, which if nurtured in your bosom, would develop the reptile that would ultimately take your life ? But there are many other mysterious ways in which this slight cold or catarrhal inflammation acts aside from its direct ultimate effects down the air-passages and in the lungs, producing in the economy of health its direful consequences, and that, too, in a hidden, silent man- ner. The brain and whole nervous system is intimately interwoven in this cord of morbid sympathy throughout the whole physical structure ; so much so, that when one organ, like the throat, the lungs, or the heart is diseased, other neighboring organs situated in the abdominal viscera — for instance, like the stomach, the liver, or other glandular organs con- cerned in digestion and assimilation — take on morbid influences through this chain of nervous sympathy, so one organ hinges upon another in the whole physical, animal economy, one deranging the other precisely as with a watch or other nice machinery, only more complete, as the human organism is subject to and controlled by a divine law, whereas the watch is only subject to a law of mechanism in the human body. Therefore, we have not only the claim of morbid action from physical derangement, producing the liability to physical death, but we have also a law of chemical affinity to which the higher law of our animal existence yields in the end, namely, in physical death, its supremacy. When we reflect on this, therefore, and the fearful number of pre- mature deaths in the United States by the " slight cold " and its ne- glect, may we not, in justice to the subject which we so conscien- tiously and philanthropically labor to expound for the good of man- kind and future posterity, impart to them the knowledge and the importance of a physical education, as known and expressed by St. Paul himself, that converted disciple to the benign influences of Christ- ianity and the light flowing therefrom, when he says : " Know ye not that your body is not your own which you have of God, but that it is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is within you." When will we professing Christians learn to regard our bodies as temples which we only have on trust from our supreme Maker, for the express purpose of cultivating, preparing, and developing here in this earthly sphere that Holy Ghost, that immortality which it now con- 78 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. tains, and which is designed by him, if we so use the casket that con- tains it, to develop it for a high and noble sphere of angelic, seraphic life, where human suffering and human woe shall be banished ? But the thoughtful, reflecting, and intelligent reader will ask, es- pecially if he be an invalid and a victim now suffering and laboring under the effects of this direful malady, viewed so lightly : Is there a cure for this catarrh, which entails such fearful consequences ? Does science afford means and facilities that are available to us to meet, to arrest the development of, and crush this viper that we have within us, while yet in embryo ? His faltering hopes doubtless will be cheered, his spirits will be exhilarated, and his sleep for the coming night will be more refreshing and more sound, in proportion to the encourage- ment in our assurance that we made in the preliminary remarks of this work, that we were one of those progressive physicians who disdain to sit down with folded arms, acquiescing in those old, worn-out, and, we are happy to say, fast becoming obsolete doctrines of the old allo- pathic school, that for Consumption there is no cure. We could not apathetically acquiesce in doctrines so discouraging and absurd ; but believe, and now assert, from extended experience, that God never suffered a malady to prevail without providing in science a remedy for every ill, a balm for every wound ; and we rejoice to proclaim to the invalid that we see that there is a cure for him. We do believe thai catarrh, in all its forms and manifestations, as it may affect, in ulceration, or enlargement of the mucous follicular glands of the mouth or throat, enlarged or ulcerated tonsillary glands, or its more malignant form of quinsy, sore throat, or ulceration, or that awful, modern-developed, epidemic malady, affecting the same part, diphtheria, and inflammation of the larynx, and its consequences in loss of voice, or ulceration downward to the bronchial tubes, in its difficulty of breathing, in its direful paroxysms of spasmodical suffo- cation, asthma ; we do believe that we have found a remedy for all these, if the victim will adopt it before this organic structure has de- composed and lost its integrity of vitality ; for we are not so bare- faced, presumptuous, or lacking in conscience, to assert that we or any man possesses the power to restore a structure once disorganized — a structure that required infinite wisdom to devise. Well, what is the remedy that we have discovered, which these emergencies taxed our ingenuity to devise, and which thousands of suffering invalids so much require, and which will answer the purpose even when patients are not able to see us personally ? In the first place, before it has extended past the valve of the larynx into the windpipe, our "LIQUID CATARRH REMEDY," which is used by PULMONARY CONSUMPTION". 79 insufflation, that is, snuffed up the nostrils from the hand, is so scien- tifically compounded that it acts most benignly upon this inflamed mucous surface and its glands, to stimulate it gently to a new and healthy condition, by subduing the abnormal or morbid condition. The reader will perceive that this part of pur treatment is just as scientific, and rationally applied locally where the disease is, in the very seat of its manifestation, as it is so applied when it has passed farther on beyond the valve of the larynx and wind-pipe, where all liquids are shut off, and those diseased parts become respiratory organs only, and can only be reached by inhaling them in the shape of vapor, in which manner they are administered for laryngitis and bronchitis, which is the same catarrhal disease after it has gone downward beyond the valve of the wind-pipe. 1. Diagram of the Larynx. 2. Trachea or Wind-pipe, and the Bronchial Tubes. 3. The Larynx, or Organ of Voice. 4. The Wind-pipe to the top of the Lungs. 5. The Right Bronchial Tube. 6. The Left Bronchial Tube, and its branches, showing also the manner in which Medicated Vapor passes, with natural breathing, into the lungs and air- cells. Here the reader will see a cut and diagram illustrating the larynx, and where is situated, the little valve or clapper, as it were, which in- 80 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. stantly shuts down the moment we swallow any liquids or food, which goes into the stomach, or even when the patient insufflates any liquids by the nostrils. The reader will also perceive, by the appearance of the anatomical structure illustrated in this cut, how medicines can alone be made to reach the air-passages and the lungs, as in Tubercular Consumption, by inhaling them in the shape of vapor. So, returning back, he will see that our system of treatment is entirely divested of old-fogyism and its absurd notions (however orthodox they were once) of putting medicines into the stomach, for this catarrh and this inflammation that commence at the tip end of the nose, goes back, then downward, then into the air-passages, and throughout the whole extent of these air passages and its surface, as we have described. The stomach, be it understood by you, is made— for what ? It is, as we have before explained, the grand laboratory of the pabulum of human life and strength. It is, in the first place, the receptacle for the assimilation of food into healthy blood. But this is not all ; besides its being a receptacle, the stomach is supplied with a mucous membrane and series of glandular apparatus likewise, like the air- passages for secreting, what ? Not moisture to moisten it, as in the case of the glands of the air-passages, to lubricate them and keep them in a healthy, pliant condition ; but, for what, I repeat ? To secrete a proper and essential fluid, called the gastric-juice, which is highly essential to aid in breaking down the food after it has once passed into the stomach, to convert it into chyme. What is chyme ? Chyme is a milk-like fluid, from the softening down of our food by the intermix- ture of this appropriate element — gastric-juice. The gastric-juice possesses wonderful properties. Its power is so great, as a solvent I mean, when the glands and mucous membranes of the stomach are in a healthy condition, as to be able, not only of corroding but dissolving metal. A wonderful illustration of this, is on record : A live Yankee, who had the fool-hardiness, when performing his feats of jugglery and legerdemain, some years since, on exhibition in London, went so far with his daring and wicked feats, that he swallowed knives. But he carried his temerity to that extreme, in violating the absolute laws of life and health, that we have been dwelling on, that, though nature at first seemed to wink at him and give acquiescence and merriment to his sport by her silence, she at length rebelled, in her majesty, with two-fold power, by causing an utter disorganization of the stomach, so that it retained the knives, handles, and all which he had swallowed; which taxed the power of these vital secretions beyond its capacity, and they lay there until after death ; and they were taken out, on post- mortem examination, were exhibited, and are now retained in the 6 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION". 81 museum of a medical institution, in London, as wonderful curiosities of the freaks of audacity of this son of Jonathan ; but to show the wonderful solvent power of the gastric juice, both blades and handles were very much consumed by it. I have merely introduced to the reader this wonderful piece of extravagance and folly as another illustration in proof, not only of the absurdity, but the barbarity of putting calomel, quicksilver, anti- mony, arsenic, and other minerals and poisonous drugs, too numerous and shocking to mention, into this receptacle that God has prepared ; for what ? To convert food, by its appropriate glandular secretions, or the gastric-juice, into the commencing process, as it shall be carried farther into the duodenum or little stomach, and come in contact with other appropriate glandular secretions into proper parts downward, into the pabulum of life, to nourish and sustain this wonderful phy- sical organism — this body of ours, this temple which contains the Holy Ghost ; sustain it for the great purposes that we have before mentioned ; and not for the purpose of poisoning this fountain of life, this sustainer of the vital organs too, which, in their turn, are to receive the vital atmosphere from the circumambient heavens around and above us, which is breathed in and completes that process on the surfaces of the minute air-cells ; by this last finishing-stroke of respi- ration of vital atmosphere, which crowns its process on its innumerable surfaces by giving it its florid tinge. Yes, there, reader, there is the ultimatum, every thing being equal — the poisons of old fogyism excluded from the stomach — where all your food when rightly masti- cated and put in, is duly converted into blood. "Will you not, then, at once and forever, become convinced with me of the absurdity of old allopathy in drugging the stomach to cure the inflammation and morbid chain of action, commenced in these mucous membranes at the nostrils, which ends in its fatal effects, in death, in the lungs, unless cured by the philosophical and rational manner that I have before explained to you, namely, by applying soothing and quieting remedies to the seat of the disease by insufflation of a proper soothing emollient, or inhalation in the form of vapors ? In addition to this " Liquid Catarrh Remedy," that we have before spoken of, that we prepare and furnish to our patients throughout the whole United States, and the Canadas even, there are parts of the mouth and throat which must be reached by an appropriate mouth- wash, or gargle ; therefore, in addition to the " Catarrh Remedy," we prepare such a Throat-Wash or Gargle, so that each patient at a distance, having complicated affections of these and other parts, may be furnished with all the appropriate remedies to reach every affected 6 82 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. part. This u Liquid Catarrh Remedy" and " Throat-Wash," we now send to thousands that we do not see, from their description of their ease?, and we are gratified in the reception of their testimony of the perfect cures done by them. But the reflecting reader, especially the invalid, so sensitive in the aeuteness of his sufferings, whose reason and causality have been quickened to perceive that he has a complication of maladies, affecting other primary organs, that he imagines, and rightly too, which in his particular case gave rise to this inflamed and ulcerated throat ; for he or she, as the case may be, has no recollection, in those isolated instances, of ever taking any sudden cold, however slight, upon which those morbid affections of the throat supervene ; so they have fol- lowed up our chain of philosophical reasoning, that we demonstrated some little time ago, when we endeavored to illustrate to you that the stomach and the digestive organs ; the liver, the pancreas, the duodenum and their appropriate glands ; the whole alimentary canal, the bowels, took on a morbid condition through other media, being affected through the chain of morbid sympathy, through the nervous system, and in the case of his or her sore throat or bronchial or laryngial affection, and they think the violent attacks of asthma, which they are sometimes affected with, has originated in obstinate constipa- tion of the bowels, in dyspepsia or indigestion and torpid condition of the liver. Perhaps they have discovered, by the energy of their exercises and inquiries in reading the causes of so many of these modern diseases, the wonderful function of the skin, and discovered too, that in their peculiar case, it is negative, sluggish, sallow, dry, harsh ; they have discovered, too, in the progress of these physiological inquiries, that the function of the skin can only be maintained by frequent ablutions ; and, in their special cases, it occurs to them, for the first time, that they have been very negligent in ablutions or bathing. It has occurred to them also that recently, since the throat has become so sore and troublesome, that the secretion of the kidneys is frequently thick and muddy ; it is scanty, and at times becomes irri. tating as it passes from the urethra ; it occurs to them, for the first time, like a ray of light shining through the crevice of a dark cottage, a dilapidated body, which now admits new light through chinks disease has made, that the decomposition going on in the body has not been carried off by the proper emunctories, and tells them the instructive lesson, that this irritating sediment discovered in the secretions of the kidneys are those poisons that should have passed off by the bowels and the skin, which they now discover they have too long neglected, and it opens their eyes of perception to comprehend that PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 83 their sore throat has been occasioned by the disordered stomach, alimentary canal, and the suppression of the function of the skin ; for to the intellectual and scientific inquirer, these secretions and emuncto- ries of ours convey wonderful light and knowledge. Well, then, there are cases — and they are numerous, too, in particu- lar — that do arise primarily from a disordered state of the stomach, the digestive organs, alimentary canal, and other emunctories being deranged, giving rise by sympathy to the irritation at the top of the throat, without being preceded by catarrh or colds. Well, then, the reader will see that these cases require different treatment from insufflation, or the inhalation of medicated vapors. Really, they do. That is so. Well, our bitter enemies, who read with you this same book, and the philosophical and rational position that we have taken, and which we shall endeavor to maintain, will say : You must succumb to old fogyism at last, and these new-fangled notions of inhalation and insufflation have vanished. We must now put drugs into the stomach to correct this morbid condition, the history of which we have just read. But this is not the case, we reply ; in answer to the envy that may result from the rivalry or prejudices of the profession ; that corrective treatment, embodying proper specific solvents for these morbid poisons which are now r found in the blood— as a consequence of taking bad food into the stomach, and in a pernicious manner, which has been unhealthily assimilated and is the cause of this chain of morbid action and diseased conditions in the lining membrane of the stomach, alimentary canal, in the liver and combined organs — is not poisonous ; it is not calomel nor quicksilver, antimony nor arsenic, minerals or any kind of old fogyism or any thing of its deadly, devastating nature. The medicinal agents required and which we give are based upon a scientific analysis from our investigations of the chemistry of man, and the results of our investigations, aided by the microscope, were found to meet its appropriate corrective, or solvents, as it may be, which we find in the vegetable kingdom, and which God, in his infinite wisdom, has prepared for man to meet these contingencies and emer- gencies which he knew that man in his frailty and short-sightedness would be subjected to. Ah ! is not medicine, then, a sublime, noble, and humane study, when the physician takes nature as his guide, and understands her laws, and traces, by art, in the flow r ers of the field and the herbs of the forest, those material principles and requisites by which to cleanse, through the proper emunctories, this deranged system of the poisons located therein ; and to aid further the vital resources to arouse the disordered functions, and to overcome the 84: TULMONARY CONSUMPTION. deranged conditions ; then she asserts her supremacy in restoring health where before existed disease. We do give then, by the stomach, these appropriate remedies, solv- ents, correctives, and antidotes for these numerous poisons, diseased organs, and suspended functions, to restore a healthy glandular secre- tion, and cause every organ to put on and maintain its harmonious action ; then its machinery revolves without a jar, without discord ; and healthy buoyancy of spirits, hope, and cheerfulness exist, and health once more animates that diseased body which, but a little time ago, bid fair to become a sepulcher to its self-generated diseases. How much more easy is it, then, taking God, the author and finisher of our being, in his primitive laws, to become a rational physician and healer of the " infirmities of mankind" ? What profession, let me ask, on earth is more laudable ? What is better calculated to fire the bosom of a philanthropist, who sees beyond the confines of the grave and physical suffering and the longings after gold, the priceless gem that exists within that diseased temple — diseased because of the ignorance and willfulness of man ? Truly, " he studies from the life, and in the original peruses mankind." CASE 4. Obstinate case of Catarrh cured by one bottle of Dr. Stone's "Liquid Catarrh Remedy." My Dear Doctor : Having experienced the most happy results from the use of one bottle of your invaluable " Liquid Catarrh Remedy" in my own person, I am desirous, for the benefit of like sufferers, to make it known. I had suf- fered seriously from a catarrh in the nostrils and fore-part of the head, more or less, for several years, but within a year, or a little more, of the time of making use of your remedy, the discharges from the nostrils had become very offen- sive, so much so, that I had become a source of much annoyance to my friends, and was obliged many times to avoid society, on account of the offensive nature of these secretions. Aside from this, the constant disposition to expectorate from the fauces and throat a matter almost as foul, especially on arising in the morning, was equally as great. At length I was informed of your " Liquid Catarrh Remedy," and obtained a bottle, which I used according to your direc- tions, and gratitude compels me to mention that I am now entirely free from these noxious affections above stated, being cured by the use of one bottle only, combined with a bottle of your " Throat-Wash," or " Gargle." I do not hesitate to recommend it as a most valuable remedy for Catarrh. Ellen E. Baker. Potsdam, St. Lawrence Co., N. Y., January 10, 1861. PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 85 CASE 5. Catarrh frequently masks other diseases; having left the nostrils, it, in many instances, insidiously produces its morbid effects in the posterior nares, or, in other words, the back-part of the nostrils and the upper part of the fau- ces, back and up from the soft palate, or velum palati, and it is not unfre- quently the case, that ulcers burrow deeply in those parts which are entirely out of sight, and they become so malignant at times as to cause, more or less, hemorrhage. This disposition to bleed, in several cases that we have met with in our prac- tice, has given rise to the most alarming fears. One instance of this nature, we recollect, came under our care some four years since — the case of Mr. Lape, of Scaghticoke, N. Y. He had raised blood from the throat, more or less, for some two years. In the mean time he had lost two cousins, or more, by Con- sumption— which was a family taint on his mother's side — and these melancholy coincidences had a most prostrating effect upon his spirits and his general health ; though his appetite was not seriously impaired ; neither could he notice that his strength was affected in any way by the expectoration of blood, which would appear very often, in spite of all his efforts at a cure. But the alarming circum- stances connected with the expectoration of blood continually weighed upon his mind ; so much so, that his spirits became depressed, desponding at times. He had made use of several remedies before he consulted us. We examined his chest with the Stethoscope, and upon the Pulmomcter, very carefully and nicely, (this was done in the presence of a friend who accompanied him, who seemed to take a great interest in his case ;) and we gave it as our opinion, to both the patient and his friend, that there was no organic disease in the lungs. He had a spacious vital capacity, and there were no abnormal physical sounds to warrant us in pronouncing that the blood came from the lungs, except a slight bronchial respiration — a dry, or grating, harsh sound in one of the bronchia. "We suggested that the bleeding might come from this bronchial mucous surface, that seemed to be in a state of irritation, as we could discover no local cause, in any apparent catarrh of the nostrils or ulceration of the throat, in view. He was put under a course of medicated inhalation, and advised to a generous diet. But, to our utter astonishment, it was unavailing to check the bleeding, for he returned, after a few weeks, still discouraged on account of the frequent expectoration of blood. We again made another most searching exploration of his chest, with the double stethoscope, by auscultation, and again tested his vital capacity on our Pulmometer, and found that instead of his vital capacity diminishing, that it was three hundred and seventeen inches, some eighty-two above the average capacity of men in good health. (The reader will see here another evidence of the importance of making use of the Pulmometer in all such diseases.) We gave it then as our decided opinion, that the blood did not come from the lungs nor bronchial mucous surfaces. Then, the question arose, where did it come from ? He had no evidence of Catarrh in the frontal sinus ; he had no ulceration immediately back of the tongue or the glands of the throat ; neither was the epiglottis or the rim of the larynx affected, for all were brought to view. The question, then forced itself upon us, we repeat, Where is the seat 86 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. of this hemorrhage ? We came to the conclusion, that it must be situated high up the fauces, at the posterior nares, and far back of the soft palate. Hence, in order to determine this matter, we threw up a mild injection, back of the soft palate, by the curved nasal syringe, and at once washed out a considerable quantity of thick, ulcerated matter, mixed with blood. Here, the blind feature of this prolonged and disheartening case was at once decided. We told our patient what we always insisted upon, namely, that his lungs were sound, and that in one little spot, perhaps less than an inch in circumference, was the seat of all the disease that had given rise to so much mental anxiety, and for so long a time ; and we also told him, that if he would stay with us, in the Institution, ten days or two weeks, and give us a chance to inject the parts personally, wc would cure him in that length of time. He readily consented to do so. Suffice it to say, that this case was soundly cured in two weeks, and has now remained so for four years. We insert this case, in the first place, to show that Catarrh very frequently masks those symptoms of disease which are associated with the lungs, and of a most alarming character, from the evidence of bleeding and not knowing where the blood comes from. Because it is raised from the throat, it is thought by patients generally to come from the lungs, when, in many instances, it proceeds from ulceration back of the throat, or out of sight, and is one that can be readily cured, when proper local treatment is adopted. In the second place, we insert it here as a matter of reference, of a permanent cure of one of those blind cases, which are often looked upon with the most serious apprehension. CASE 6. Case of J. Wickes, Sandy Hill, Washington Co., JSF. Y. — Catarrh of frontal sinus and 'posterior nares. Doctor Stone : I beg leave to inform you, that I have used your " Liquid Catarrh Remedy," with the most happy results, in my own person. I had for years been troubled, more or less every winter and spring, with Catarrh, when one of your circulars, describing the efficiency of your " Liquid Catarrh Reme- dy," was brought to my notice. I ordered a bottle immediately. The first bottle gave such satisfaction, that I again ordered a second, which completed a cure of my case, which had been of such long standing. Speaking of its good results in my own case to many of my neighbors, seve- ral requested me to order it for them, which I have done, and they likewise have made use of it, with good results. J. Wickes. Sandy Hill, Washington Co., N. Y. Practical Remarks on Catarrh, Bad Breath from Catarrh. There probably is not a more offensive thing on earth than that which frequently emanates from the human breath. I know of many persons whose breath is so offensive that a large room will be scented and the atmosphere thereof become obnoxious, perfumed, as it were, if they remain in it but a few moments. PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 87 The cause of this is very easily explained. The fetid discharges are constantly being secreted from the lining membranes of the nose and throat, and the air, in passing in and out of the lungs, must ne- cessarily pass over and through these secretions, taking up the effluvia and breathing it out. Now, although a bad breath is not necessarily fatal, it is exceedingly inconvenient and unpleasant, especially to those who are exposed to its influence. Many persons are prevented from mingling in society for this reason alone. This is one of the results of Catarrh — a disease which I believe fully two thirds of the people of this country are suffering from. I have already said that, in the majority of cases, it is the commence- ment of Consumption, (which fact no intelligent physician will deny ;) and to cure the catarrh, in all such cases, is to cure the commencing process of Consumption, aside from curing the cause of bad breath, and removing the disagreeable contingencies which the victim is con- stantly subjected to, either in avoiding society or else subjecting those whom he mingles with to the most serious inconvenience. My experience in diseases of the lungs, throat, and nose, has, of course, been very extensive, making it, as I have for years, a specialty ; and in saying to the public that the remedy that I now offer is an effectual article for the cure of catarrh, I assert that which I know to be true, from experience in curing hundreds of cases. We could go on and fill a volume with copies of letters and certi- ficates which we have received from our patients, who have been cured by our remedies ; but it is entirely unnecessary. Those that we have published are cases in point, which we meet with every day, and which we have in our possession, to refer to as evidences. But the " Liquid Catarrh Remedy," as we before mentioned, in the section on the consequences of a neglected cold or catarrh, alone is not sufficient, in many cases. For instance, in a case like that of Mr. Lape, where ulceration is situated immediately back of the root of the tongue, in the throat, then the "Throat-Wash" or Gargle becomes necessary also, and in many instances the corrective, oxygenated tonics and solvents that we give, both to purify the blood and to establish a healthy function of the stomach and digestive organs. Either of these remedies are furnished to our patients, and can be forwarded by ex- press to any part of the country, for two dollars per bottle, with ample printed and written directions accompanying them for their use, and also advice as to hygiene. 88 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. (BUvtvXh Stttkitm* The great advantages of the new discovered methods of exploring the Chest, and determining the incipient stages of Tubercular Consumption, especially by the author's Pulmometer, or Lung-Tester. It is almost needless for us to repeat again that within a few years, some twenty or thirty years, the whole medical fraternity, from the days of Hippocrates down, with some very few exceptions, Sydenham himself, perhaps, who has been pronounced the modern Hippocrates, have declared Consumption to be an incurable disease. Why was this the case ? Because science then had not made the happy discovery of eliciting light as to the true condition of the organs within the chest, from external physical signs and manifestations which it has now made and carried to such an extent of perfection to the well-disciplined, ear. It was left for Laennec to discover and bring to perfection the science of auscultation, as applied to physical sounds in the lungs and respira- tory organs and the heart. The true condition of the lungs may be as well known to one well-disciplined and experienced, from external physical manifestations as though the vital organs themselves could be seen by the naked eye. Formerly, every symptom of cough, difficulty of breathing, or impeded respiration, was pronounced to be incurable; this decision was given for want of accurate knowledge of what waa going on within. It seems strange that the principle that was so gen- erally known as percussion, (that is, striking a hollow body for the pur- pose of eliciting sound,) and applied so commonly in other depart- ments, should not also have been applied to the human chest. Every one knows that a hollow body will elicit sound by percussion. The chest, to the full extent of the lungs, excepting the part occupied by the heart, in a healthy state, is a hollow substances, and will give forth a resonant, clear sound. This art had been practiced by the mechanic to determine whether a wall was hollow or solid ; for in- stance, when he wishes to drive a nail in a joist concealed in the wall, he will tap r/ently with the hammer to determine whether the sound is resonant, holloio, or whether it is solid, thus arriving at tho exact location of the joist concealed in the wall. PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 89 Acting upon this principle in regard to the lungs, it is easy to de- termine, by percussion, when the lungs have become consolidated to any great extent by the deposition of tubercles, or by congestion of blood, which follows frequently pneumonia or pleurisy, and leaves a lung or a portion of a lung perfectly consolidated ; in the latter case, percussion will elicit a flat or dull sound. This is one method of modern discovery. But, in addition to this, Laennec carried the art of physical exploration of the chest to a still greater extent of perfection, in which he applied directly the ear, by means of the stethoscope, or little trumpet, a cylindrical body, which furnishes a medium of conducting the sound from the chest to the ear, where it is not convenient to apply the ear. By this method of ac- customing the ear to the sounds of respiration in a state of health, it was easy to be determined, from extensive practice, the vast difference that occurred in the sounds manifested when the lungs and respiratory organs were diseased. Comparing these abnormal or diseased sounds, discovered before death, with the diseased structure that was found in many cases after death, a perfect science was demonstrated ; for instance, when Tuber- cular Consumption had advanced to that extent as to occasion an ulcer- ated cavern in the lung, this cavern will give forth a hollow or shrill sound of the voice over that very spot. So if the bronchial tubes were filled with mucus or other material, by contraction from posture, thick- ening of their walls, so as to create a harsh murmur or grating sound, or rhales, it has been discovered what were the diseased conditions that gave rise to those precise sounds. We need not spend time in a brief work like this, to narrate, for the instruction of the common reader, the philosophy of this science. Suf- fice it to say, that this principle is precisely the same in this respect as in music. If the ear is perfectly disciplined, (or one has a musical ear,) the slightest change or variation in a note or a part of a note is readily discovered. Such is the case with the science of auscultation, or lis- tening to the sounds in the human chest for the purpose of determin- ing the true condition of the organs within, or the nature of the dis- ease that may be manifesting itself. It will be readily seen, then, by the reader, that the ability of a medi- cal man to determine any thing in regard to a disease in the chest by listening, or auscultation, and the use of the stethoscope, depends upon his extensive experience in examining the chest, and his ear being dis- ciplined under a good instructor, where there are extensive opportuni- ties afforded, as in the large wards of a hospital, or in an institution where diseases of the lungs are made a specialty, as in the Troy Lung 90 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. and Hygienic Institute. It is entirely owing to this neglect of disci- pline and want of understanding the science of exploring the chest for the diseases located therein, by country physicians generally, that leads them to reiterate still the same fatal doctrine proclaimed in ages gone by, with a very few exceptions, that for Tubercular Consumption there is no cure ; hence the discouragement met with every day by invalids in all the smaller towns and villages remote from cities. Many lives are sacrificed needlessly by uninformed physicians giving false opinions in regard to cases that they are consulted in, for not knowing what they are about. Says Professor Bennet, the author of several valuable works on Con- sumption and Pulmonary Tuberculosis : " I can not bring my remarks to a close without expressing my conviction that the general notion of its incurability is mainly attributable to the fact that it is not recog- nized until it be far advanced, and yet there is, perhaps, no disease, which, by one practiced in auscultation, may be more readily detected." In quoting the opinion of Professor Bennet, we but corroborate all other modern authors on the same disease, and give the opinion of the thousands who now make this department of the healing art a specialty in their profession. Although every form of disease that has manifested itself to any extent in the trachea, respiratory organs, and the lungs, can be readily determined by one skilled in this science, who makes it a specialty in the generality of instances, yet there is a stage in the development of Tubercular Consumption in which the ear and the stethoscope alike fail to detect the incipient process of tubercular deposition in the lungs. Since the great discovery of Laennec, and the farther perfection of what he discovered, this dark feature in the process of Tubercular Consumption has been deeply deplored, and thousands of lives, doubt- less, have been allowed to run on into the second, third, and incurable stages, in their peculiar cases, that might have been cured, and the vic- tims have escaped untimely graves had the incipient process been discovered while in the blood, when about to manifest itself by deposi- tions in the lungs. Dr. Bennet himself mentions the obscure process of tubercular development from the blood, in its incipient progress on- ward to its first commencement in the lungs, where no evident, exter- nal, physical sounds have yet begun to manifest themselves. This point was also noticed by the late celebrated Drs. Marshall Hall and James Johnson. Dr. Hall says, " that the constitution frequently takes the alarm before the stethoscope can detect tubercles in the lungs." Dr. Johnson says : " It is often extremely difficult to solve PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 91 the question, after the most careful examination of the symptoms, and the most accurate investigations with the stethoscope, notwithstanding the confidence with which some medical men determine the point." The failure then was, and now is, to a vast extent over the world, to arrest tubercular deposits in the lungs at this early stage, for want of farther light and scientific information to determine it ; for though many of the air-cells may be incapacitated to be filled with air, yet the lessening of that capacity could not be discovered by the stethoscope. The question arises, then, how could this very necessary feature be determined to a moral certainty — whether the vital capacity of the patient was impaired or not ? To determine this point brought into requisition the principle or philosophy of pneumatics itself. It was seen, therefore, that it was absolutely necessary to invent some appara- tus that would discover the true vital capacity, by measurement in cubic inches, and illustrate it to the perceptive organs by a dial or scale in the same manner that the hands tell the true time on the dial- plate of a clock or a watch. Such was our experience years after we had entered the profession and made pulmonary diseases a specialty. We therefore taxed our in- genuity to devise the means requisite to meet this great emergency, and invented the instrument that you see figured and represented in the second cut of this book, called the Pulmometer, or Lung-Tester. Other instruments, somewhat similar to ours, had been invented previously. In London, the Spirometer had been invented by Dr. Hutchinson, and was used with happy results in solving those blind points in the process of Tubercular Consumption that we speak of. But the Spirometer was very different in its principle of construction to the Pulmometer invented by us. It was formed of a brass air- chamber, which dipped into a reservoir of water — the air-chamber, of course, being measured properly into cubic inches, to determine the number of inches that the patient could respire ; for the vital capacity was to be determined by blowing out into this air-chamber, which was balanced with two weights and made to rise out of the water by pul- leys ; but unless the instrument was exactly balanced and made to rise by the pulleys without the least friction, it was worthless for the pur- poses it was designed for. We, in the first place, went to great expense to have a brass Spi- rometer made in this country on the principles of Dr. Hutchinson's; but -we found, after going to this expense, that the friction in the pulleys of the w r heels was so great in raising the air-chamber from the water, that it was worthless for the object designed for. We threw it aside, therefore, though taxed with great loss. But there is no great loss 92 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. without its attendant gain. The gain to suffering humanity has been immense at our expense, for it was this failure which led us to contrive a substitute, which we afterward did in the Pulmometer. So per- fectly and correctly designed upon scientific principles is our Pulmo- meter, that the principle upon which it determines the vital capacity is such that it involves no friction nor contingency that attends the Spirometer. It is, as has been described, a glass reservoir, perfectly graduated even to the fourth of an inch. This air-reservoir is set into a glass basin filled with water. The top of the Pulmometer is furnished with a valve and stop-cock, to which a tube is attached, forming a con- nection with the person's lips. In addition to this perfect manner of determining the true condition of the lungs, and whether their vital capacity is lessened by tubercular deposits or by any other disease, the exact quantum of air which each individual is capable of receiving into the lungs, is brought most evidently to the perceptive faculties by the corresponding amount of water which takes the place of the air that his lungs are capable of taking from the reservoir. The patient filling his lungs entirely from the air contained in the glass reservoir, water instantly takes the place formed by the vacuum, and the vacuum in the lungs has been produced by an immediate forced expiration in- stantly before the attempt to fill them from the Pulmometer. Since the invention of this instrument, capable of such remarkable accuracy, we have been enabled to determine by it, in more than a thousand cases, that tubercles had begun to deposit in the lungs, and advanced considerably, where we could not detect the first physical sound by which they are known by the stethoscope ; and, by the way, w r e use in our daily examinations the double stethoscope, which is ca- pable of collecting a double amount of sound, and contend that our ear is as highly disciplined and acute in this department as any other aus- cultator in the United States. We have, in many and many instances, been astonished at the light it throws upon condition of patients who frequently come for examination. They have not any very prominent symptoms of Tubercular Consumption, as we have previously remarked in the section on symptoms, only that they feel easily fatigued on taking much physical exertion, or their health is a " little delicate," as they frequently express it. We have explored the chests of such cases time and again, both by percussion (striking the chest) and by auscul- tation with the stethoscope, without perceiving any of the physical signs which are generally easily discovered in the second and other forms of Consumption ; and from the external appearances of their chest, we had not much reason to suspect that tubercular deposit had commenced, but we found, on testing their vital capacity, that they PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 93 had fallen off sixty, eighty, and one hundred inches, showing to a moral certainty that the air-cells in parts of the lungs had become entirely unfit for the purposes of receiving air. We will here give one instance of this remarkable detection by the Pulmometer, of Tubercular Consumption that had far advanced, and yet the victim was about performing public duties, and in active exer- cise. It was made at the public exhibition of the Arabian Giant, on the part of his wife, when he was exhibited in the city of Troy some two years since. We here quote from the Troy Whig of the 28th of March, 1859. The examination of these cases excited such intense in- terest, that it was voluntarily published as here stated : From the Troy Whig of March 28th, 1859. The Vital Capacity of the Arabian Giant. — Dr. Stone, the distinguished physician to the Troy Lung and Hygienic Institute, measured the lungs of De- roth R. Gorhon, the "Arabian Giant," last Friday evening, as previously an- nounced by us, with his Pulmometer, or Lung-Tester, and found his vital capa- city to be four hundred and twenty cubic inches. The average capacity of men in good health is two hundred and twenty-four cubic inches. Taking into con- sideration his hight — seven feet six inches, weight four hundred and seventeen pounds, and age twenty-one — his capacity is not pari passu proportionate to the average of laboring men. Though his lungs are large and sound, the in- ability arises from his sedentary habits ; the pectoral muscles (muscles con- cerned in respiration) not being duly exercised to give elasticity sufiicent to ex- pand the lungs to their utmost capacity. His capacity is not equal to that of Freeman, the "American Giant," who exhibited in London some years since, which was four hundred and thirty-four cubic inches, hight six feet eleven and a quarter inches, weight nineteen stone, five pounds. But this was Freeman's capacity after training for a prize fight, which goes to show conclusively the great and all-important necessity of a proper and due amount of exercise of the muscles in the open air, and especially the muscles of the chest, and of maintain- ing an erect carriage of the chest, to develop good lungs and escape Consump- tion. The capacity of Mrs. Gorhon, the giant's wife, was only one hundred and twenty cubic inches. The average capacity of females in good health is one hundred and eighty cubic inches, demonstrating conclusively, in her case, dis- eased lungs. The instrument used by Dr. Stone, though plain and simple, is one of the most useful ever devised to determine either a healthy or unhealthy condition of the lungs. But its great value consists in pointing out incipient Consumption when all other modes of examination fail. But the important yet melancholy fact regarding the case of Mrs. Gorhon, the giant's wife, is here to be told. It was by voluntary re- quest and solicitation that we tested her capacity. She was about of- 94 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. filiating, as we before said, in the public labors of the exhibition, and wins, to the common observer, as far as external appearance was con- cerned, in perfect health, yet, on testing her lungs, she instantly com- plained of soreness, and pain on filling them to their utmost extent, which showed, by the way, a falling off of some sixty inches, or nearly one quart of air beyond what they should have been in health. She did not solicit our opinion, but we casually observed to her that she had tubercles in her lungs, and gave ourselves no further thought re- specting it. They left the city of Troy ; but a friend of ours, who was present at the examination, being interested at the scientific process of testing their vital capacity, noticed my remarks in particular. He hap- pened to be in New- York, in the fall, afterward, in Barnum's Museum, where the giant himself, Mr. Gorhon, was on exhibition, under the auspices of that great showman. My friend was instantly recognized by the Giant, and entered into cheerful conversation with him, so much so, that he was induced, in a little time, to ask after his wife ; but judge of my friend's astonishment when he was answered that his wife had been dead several weeks with Tubercular Consumption. This little incident will show to the reader, then, the remarkable power of this Pulmometer to elicit light upon the hitherto latent points, that we have before spoken of, the concealed nature of which was so long deplored by auscultators, and which may be made the means, if timely adopted, of arresting at once the course of that mon- ster who lies concealed in ambush, waiting his farther opportunity to crimson his fangs in human blood. Ah ! he satiates his craving ap- petite with blood drank at the very vitals of his victim, and, before this important discovery, could only be detected, in a farther and more advanced stage of the disease, by a painfully beautiful hectic flush, that harbinger which comes too late for science to relieve. Desiring to relieve ourselves, in proclaiming the great benefits to be derived by suffering humanity from this invention of ours, of the charge of egotism or personal aggrandizement, we will corroborate our statement by citing a remarkable instance, where Dr. Hutchinson detected incipient phthisis by means of his Spirometer, when two phy- sicians, well skilled in auscultation, both affirmed that they could not detect any organic disease, (this w r as in the case of Freeman, the Ameri- can Giant, who had gone to England for exhibition,) but in eleven months after this examination, he died in the last stage of Consumption. This instance is another proof of the great advantage of the Pulmo- meter in detecting the first inroads of Consumption, before the Stetho- scope can detect it. PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 95 PUI,MGMETER — INVENTED BY THE ADTHOK. 96 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. Itwtftfi Stukhm. Scrofula, the foundation and canse of Tubercular Consumption, G-oitre, Broncho- cele, Spinal Curvature, Hip-joint Disease, Intestinal Worms, all embody Scrofula and Tubercular Consumption. What is Scrofula ? This is a great and momentous question ; for it is broad and comprehensive in its field of morbid action, yet a name used every day by thousands in a very vague and meaningless manner, compared, we mean, with the awful ravages and devastation produced by the silent action of its virus — vague and meaningless, because many such names, which have been handed down to us by our ances- tors originated in the darker ages of the world, so far as medicine was concerned, and as to any correct derivative for the purpose of ex- pressing their nature. For instance, the word Scrofula derives its name from scrofa, a sow, because swine were presumed to be subject to a similar complaint. TLe modern medical definition of Scrofula is, a state of the system characterized by indolent glandular tumors, chiefly in the neck, suppurating slowly and imperfectly, and healing with difficulty. How imperfect and meaningless, then, is the name of Scrofula — de- rived from swine — when applied to that awful disease which we have labored so hard, in the preceding sections, to show, and which is none other than Tubercular Consumption, which causes the death of untold millions, as it were, not only with the disease in that form, but in the innumerable other forms which we have alluded to ! For when we traced, by analysis, what tubercles were in the lungs, and how they formed, and traced them back to a certain condition of the blood, we then said, that the condition of the blood which forms tubercles in the lungs, was the same that caused swellings in the glands of the neck, swollen eye-lids, tumid lips, aversion to light, hip-joint disease, spinal curvature, rickets, or deformity of the chest and bones, and a soften- ing of the bones, and which, in many instances of childhood and later periods of life, terminate in caries of the bones also, and white-swell- ings of the knee. Furthermore, we mentioned, that this same morbid condition of the blood, which gave rise to tubercles in the lungs in later periods of life, caused death to a great extent in infancy and PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 97 childhood, by hydrocephalus, or dropsy of the brain, and by convul- sions — it occasioned swellings of the mesenteric glands of the bowels, and dropsical affections likewise in their cavities, the cellular mem- branes and tissues of the ankles, and likewise of the chest. To Scro- fula belongs that certain inherent condition of the blood and system, to chilblains, chapped hands, eruptions on the face, scald head, ulcer- ation in the ears of children, which creates deafness, scabby sores about the ears, and thickening of the membranes of the nostrils. It is the same condition which, in the later periods of life of children and adults, gives rise to the formation of polypus, or spongy tumors, in the nose, ears, and other parts of the body, and which develop by inju- ries, or coming in contact with contagious diseases of the atmosphere, causing erysipelas, and to which also belong measles, hooping-cough, and the many other seemingly mysterious diseases peculiar to infancy and to childhood. It is that condition in children which causes many to be infested with intestinal worms, producing thereby convulsions, and deaths in hundreds and thousands of instances. The same, like- wise, that causes children to be infected with pediculi, or lice. How absurd and inconsistent, then, after reading this enumeration, the result of a morbid condition of the blood and physical system, to attribute this to the use of pork ? This absurd, idea, which is harped upon at the present time by many one-ideaed physicians, as being one of the chief causes of Scrofula in the United States, is a prejudiced no- tion that has come down from the time that the Jews forbade the use of pork, because many, in their times, that lived so exclusively upon swine were troubled with similar swellings or affections of the body. Thousands of instances occur daily, of scrofulous manifestations, wherein the children or their parents have scarcely ever tasted of pork. This, then, goes to show tho abusurdity of its springing from the use of swine. We do not doubt that people injure their health, and lay the found- ation for many diseases, by tainting their blood from the abuse of pork which has been badly fed and fatted, as it is termed, upon swill and noxious ingredients, which are so generally given to swine in a domestic state. But this only goes to show the abuse of this kind of food, w T hich, under other circumstances, when properly kept, in a cleanly condition, with due amount of exercise and healthy food, would become as nutritious and healthy as beef or mutton. It shows, at the same time, the absurdity of continuing to use the same ancient terms to designate modern diseases, which appear in many other and more aggravated forms than the name was originally intended to im- ply ; namely, simple swellings of the glands of the neck. 7 £8 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. This absurd use of names will answer the very purpose of blind- folding the people's eyes, and keeping them ignorant in regard to the true causes of disease, by physicians of the Old School, before alluded to, who delight to propagate and countenance this ignorance, as it subserves their nefarious purposes. "Would it not be more rational, would it not be more consistent, for them to show to the world and suffering humanity that this very disease, which is now termed Scro- fula, and which carries off so many to an early grave, in so many varied and mysterious ways, has been caused by their poisons, in drugging mankind with the most deadly of minerals, mercury, or, in other words, quicksilver, antimony, arsenic, and hundreds of other mineral ppisons, ever since the days of Hippocrates, the father of physic, down to the present time ? It requires but little science or intelligence to show every reflecting person that the vital stamina of our race has been gradually depreci- ating and becoming enfeebled, generation after generation, down to the present time, just in proportion to the increase of physicians, and the wide range of allopathic practice. To such an extent has the physical, vital stamina of our race depreciated, that a generation is born and passes off the stage of existence every thirty-three years, instead of living to the ripe old age of eighty, one hundred, and one hundred and fifty yea>*s, as did our ancestors. What a sad commentary upon physic and physicians ! Instead of bettering mankind by their art, we see people sacrificed by thousands and millions, through them ! Truly it has been said, by some of the noblest of the profession, that the world would have been better off had there been no physicians, and that more die by doctors than by the disease which they are called upon to prescribe for and cure. But the reflecting reader will see, that even the modern definition given by Professor Dunglison himself does not reach the Scrofula of our times. He has, in his definition, but reiterated what were the main characteristic features of Scrofula some hundreds of years gone by, before the stature and physical stamina of mankind were so much reduced, and when the disease only affected individuals, or certain families, or children of families, where certain local causes, or evident violations of the laws of health, applied to isolated cases alone, and not to a whole race or nation, as in our times ; for when the reader enumerates the physical manifestations, and varied forms of disease, which we attribute to Scrofula, he will at once perceive that all pre- ceding definitions of Scrofula, applying it to tubercular swellings of the glands of the neck alone, or certain deformities of the bones, PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 99 would be entirely inefficient to meet the many aggravated forms in which it now appears. Kind reader, have you in your experience ever seen a counterpart of the cut which you have here ? This cut represents a scrofulous boy, a child of three years old, or a little more — the distortion of the spine, the paralysis of the lower limbs, and turning in of the feet as a consequence. The whole appearance is that of great debility. The swellings or tubercles of the neck, the upper-lip, the tumid abdomen, all indicate that constitutional scrofula, the cause for which was laid in embryo, as described in the text. This illustrates, true to the life, one form in which Scrofula manifests itself. It represents a child about three years of age, deformed in its 100 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. feet, in its spine, in its chest, and, in fact, deformed in nearly every part of the body. It has no symmetry, and scarcely possesses the image of a human being. It is almost destitute of muscle and the other tissues which are requisite to give development and form to the system. Its bones are so soft, that it can not bear its own weight, and you see its feet are curving and limbs bending under the weight of its own body. In our experience, in prosecuting our professional acquirements, in the various hospitals and infirmaries of the world, we have witnessed hundreds of cases similar to the one this cut illustrates, only many of them much more distorted, and made still more hideous and frightful by the ravages that disease had produced ; especially some years ago, when attending a medical college of New- York, we fre- quently made visits to Randall's Island, where are situated two public charitable hospitals for the reception of children alone. Here, at this institution, are brought many sick and diseased children from the city of New- York, many of whom are orphans. In this institution we witnessed Scrofula in nearly every shape and condition ; for here whole wards were affected with scrofulous ophthalmia, or inflamma- tion of the eyes ; many unable to see, some blear-eyed, some w T ith acute sensibility to light on the least exposure to it. Others are in that stage of affection in which the cornea, the horn of the eye, would be entirely changed, thickened, and in many instances made conical. There were others affected with ulcerations of the ears, producing perfect deafness ; others having glandular swellings of the neck, with previous ulcerated discharges ; others with the rickety form that ^ou here see indicated in the cut above. Many of them w T ere perfectly helpless, excepting to be able, perhaps, to feed themselves. Here, hundreds of instances of these cases of Scrofula, in all their varied forms, are brought annually from the city of New- York, being gath- ered broadcast, as it were ; being objects of charity and commisera- tion; thrown upon the charity of the city. But w r hat, you will ask, can be the cause for this condition of the physical system, in infancy and early childhood, which arrests the growth and development of some one or more of all the organs of the body ; which causes the bones to be deformed and softened, and gives rise to ulceration, or caries of the bones, or dropsical effusions, or in- flamed eyes, and abscesses, and the many other forms of disease which they assume in different patients, too protean to be enume- rated ? To answer this question, kind reader, w T e would say that, to demon- strate to you the cause for this condition, is to answer the question of what is Scrofula, and to demonstrate what constitutes it. The cause PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 101 is, then, the want of vital force in the first germ of fetal existence. When one blind was brought to our Saviour to be healed, he asked the question : " Who sinned, that this person should be born blind ?" I simply make this allusion, kind reader, to sacred record, to illustrate the point of my philosophy that I have heretofore set forth in the preceding sections, and endeavored to explain, namely, that external manifestations, in themselves, in whatever form of disease or symptom they might make their appearance, were vague and indefinite, as to themselves, unless that symptom or external manifestation could be traced to its primary or legitimate cause ; for, so long as mankind, in a physical point of view, seek to consider symptoms only, to doctor them, as has been the course with all allopathic physicians for more than two thousand years, we shall not gain in knowledge by which to remove the cause, and thereby escape these direful effects. It is contended by writers on Scrofula, and by those who yet con- tinue to reiterate Old-School notions of pathology, that Scrofula, like Tubercular Consumption, is a disease that always has been inherited, and is now continuing to be propagated, or, in other words, transmit- ted down from sire to son, from generation to generation. Admit this to be true, which we do in many instances, and it follows, of necessity, that there must have been some first cause to develop this certain morbid condition of the system which constituted Scrofula then, and which, as has been shown, was very simple in its manifesta- tion to what it now is ; for Scrofula is not only a ten-fold, but a fifty- fold more aggravated and hideous disease than it was in the days of Hippocrates, or even centuries ago, when it was denominated " King's Evil," and received by the commonalty as true, that the touch of the royal finger would disperse it, namely, the same glandular swellings of the neck. Scrofula in ancient times combined, for its causes and developments, coincidence of climate, watery condition of diet, and whatever kind of food that did not possess the material elements requisite to develop a healthy organism, and which now characterize Scrofula in various parts of Italy, Switzerland, parts of Germany, and other parts of Europe, where it assumes the form of cretinism, to develop the enor- mous bronchocele, or swelling of the thyroid glands, which I wish to give a cut of hereafter. But that form of Scrofula is very different, as the reader is already aware, from the Scrofula of the nineteenth century in the United States. I come to the point then, of illustration of what constitutes Scro- fula — it is a want of vitality in the parent germ, laid in embryo. This is the opinion of Lugol, who has written an able monograph on this 102 PULMONAKY CONSUMPTION. subject. " Scrofula," says he ? "manifests its terrible effects in the early months of fetal existence, for it causes those spontaneous abortions which destroy at least one quarter of those affected before they see the light ; afterward it wastes their physical and moral development ; it complicates all the diseases of the evolutions of youth, which it ren- ders helpless and full of dangers; finally it reveals its presence more formally by a great number of morbid stages, the common origin of which has therefore been overlooked, and which, for this reason, au- thors have described as so many special diseases." I have said that Scrofula is a w r ant of vitality even in the germ itself. I repeat, that I admit this predisposition to generate it by the constant marriage and intermarriage of scrofulous people, and a violation of the laws of consanguinity in that manner incompatible with the laws of life and health, so that this scrofulous condition and want of vitality is propagated and kept up, in this inherited manner, to an awful extent, amid all the light that has dawned upon the nine- teenth century ; for, notwithstanding the knowledge that we possess, or that is within the reach of every person to possess before he enters upon the responsible duties of matrimony, they should know that it is an outrage upon the moral law of God for such as those to marry and be the voluntary agents and means of bringing into existence a puerile, puny offspring, -which they must know will be incapable of being developed into a healthy organism to enjoy health or life here ; yet, knowing this, they sin as they did in the days of our Saviour, when he asked the question in reference to one who was born blind — which should be asked now in every instance where we see a rickety or deformed child, or one with tubercular protuberances of the neck, with tumid eye-lids, caries of the spine, abscesses or swellings of the knee-joint — this, kind reader, should be the first question : Who sinned, that this offspring should have been brought into the world, unasked for on its own part, to suffer miserably, and die in a blighted manner, as it must do, so early ? I mean to have it understood, that this propagation of Scrofula by continued marriage and intermarriage of scrofulous and diseased people, and those who marry their cousins, as in hundreds of instances they do, thereby begetting foolish child- ren — children subject to cataract, or congenital blindness of every name and nature — is none other than God's punishment for violating his moral law r in a physical point of view. The virus of Scrofula, which I laid down in the opening part of this section, is this ethereal virus which is transmitted from sires to sons, the sins of whom are visited on the children thereof, to the third and fourth generations. But now I come to this more modern kind PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 103 of Scrofula, which I have mentioned of witnessing in my medical travels and pursuits, in various hospitals of the world, particularly at the Children's Hospital at Randall's Island, and which I have witnessed in my own general practice in hundreds of instances, some of which assumed many of the protean forms that I have above enumerated — that form which is characterized by want of life in the parent germ, laid in the uterus or mother's womb. I wish to ask the reader how he supposes, in hundreds and thousands of instances, this deprivation of life in the germ takes place ? This is an important question — too important to go into full, thrilling, and appalling detail, as it would occupy too much space here. That must be done in a monograph on the " abuses of the sexual passions, and sexual diseases;" but we will so far satisfy the longing curiosity of the reader as to enlighten him sufficiently for his own good, until he reads further, in detail, in this ap- propriate book. To begin this, in the first place, I make the broad and yet truthful assertion that there is not one couple in fifty, if there is in one hundred who marry, that ever stop to think, much more to inquire, to know and understand what are the duties that devolve upon them when they marry, or what an awfully responsible situation they are placing themselves in when they exercise the functions of the sexual organs and passions. Now, it should be known that the sexual functions either in the male or female, embody one of the most im- portant principles of our being — it is none other, kind reader, than that delegated to us by Omnipotent wisdom — for what? To fulfill His designs ; to propagate to intelligences here, on his footstool, the commencing evolution of animal, physical life ; to be developed from its proper parent germ into exquisite, organic, perfect form, and to evolve, in a perfect casket, that germ of vitality which is to be elimin- ated, from one stage of perfection to another, until, in the economy and course of his providence, a human being shall attain not only angelic but seraphic life. But I ask, in the next place : "When the majority of people marry, and they exercise the sexual function, if this consideration occupies their mind ? I shall leave this for each one that reads this book, and this section on the cause of Scrofula to answer for himself; but I am to answer the question in relation to the many distressing objects of Scrofula which it has been our fortune to witness and administer to, as a medical man ; that those who brought them into the world never thought at the time they were begotten. This brings me to the point, to tell you how this parent germ is deprived of its vitality, of its life-power, of its nerve-principle, which alone can give it perfect physical development and organism, after it 104: PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. has been born and brought into the world. Even if the mother is healthy, the seed that is deposited in her womb lacks in the life-prin- ciple, in the germ, from the abuse that has been, more or less con- stantly exercised upon the sire from his childhood, up to the time that he completed this act. So, it is known by every physiolo- gist that is well versed in his department, and is well practiced with the microscope in examining spermatic discharges, as we have done for years, under the microscope, that in all such cases of marriage, where the parties were weak in the sexual organs, and have been given to nocturnal and diurnal emissions, that the seminal secretion is destitute of well-formed spermatozoa. In fact, the seminal secre- tion properly embodies, in many instances no spermatozoa at all ; it is but a limpid, glairy or watery secretion, secreted under a morbidly ex- citable condition of the testicles and seminal vessels themselves. But even in instances where there are, appearances of spermatozoa, (mean- ing the germ of the future offspring,) the microscope shows that they are deficient, even at that early stage, in development ; they are crip- pled in the point of extremity of the tail-part, as it is termed by phy- siologists and chemists. Here, then, in the first origin of the germ of human life, lies the cause of Scrofula. Kind reader, we have told you, in the preliminary sections of this work, in giving you some reasons for writing, that we have investigat- ed animal chemistry, and the chemistry of man, with intense applica- tion, and with profound interest, and that the microscope had been brought within a few years, to the aid of scientific men in these inves- tigations, which had their origin, in this new light, to an actual demon- stration upon physiological chemistry — which had hitherto been made a matter of conjecture — where before all was darkness and empiri- cism. In investigating the cause for Scrofula in all its hideous symptoms, to this wonderful extent, as is now being manifested in our country, in causing so many premature deaths in infancy, and in early childhood, in adolescence, and in later periods of life, by this form of tubercular disease, we have made use of the microscope, and brought in requi- sition the aid of animal chemistry, in obtaining our knowledge and arriving at our conclusion. But, to show the reader that this is no presumption, nor egotism on our part, we will quote from Lugol, the author we have previously mentioned, who has made more observa- tions, perhaps, upon Scrofula and its causes, than any other man extant. He says : " When the father is scrofulous, the fetus may find in the uterus of the mother, if she be healthy and should have suitable ru- diments, materials of reparation which will nourish it, and strength- PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 105 en it so, that at the end of pregnancy, it will be more or less healthy ; but when the semen of the man is of too degrading a character, too destitute of prolific qualities, its elements can not combine intimately enough with those furnished by the female to have even a common degree of vitality, and pass through all the phases of fetal life too. Abortion then supervenes. However well-formed may be the organs of the mother, those seeds which are too much deteriorated can not germinate, even in good soil." This will show to the reader why there are so many such puny offspring that are born into the world, as the preceding cut illustrates ; who are born into the world to live but a short time in great misery, for the most part to themselves, and if perchance their lives are pro- longed, it is but to be a reflection continually upon their j^rogenitors. There is still another silent cause for Scrofula, laid in utero, wherein the fetus is perfectly robbed of the due amount of that vital force so necessary for its healthy evolution, and the organization of a perfect being, very extensive in its operations, and the magnitude of the bitter consequences incurred thereby are beyond human power to conceive. I mean by this, that the germ is perfectly blighted and withered, as it were, for its full perfection, for physical and vital stamina, and for greatness and usefulness also throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity, which is brought about culpably on the part of its parents, by an excess of sexual indulgence during the responsible pe- riod of gestation. Every intelligent person who studies nature attentively, and takes the unerring laws of instinct as his guide, well knows, that during the period of gestation, all female animals, with very few exceptions, refuse the male during the time in which their young are being developed. They repel, contemptuously, and with indignation, every advance of the kind. Then, taking the unerring law of nature as our guide, in a higher sphere of human development wherein God, in his wisdom, has labored to develop intelligences for immortality and future great- ness beyond the confines of this short, bodily existence, what do we see to be the conduct of man, whose sexual propensities are left to be guided by the superior and godlike principle — Reason ? Man's duty is to know, in the first place, when he takes upon himself the awful and responsible situation of instituting his own self into the germ of fetal organization, it is requisite that he should understand his duty toward that offspring whom he has voluntarily been the means of developing. But what is the case in respect to this matter ? Instead of the mother, when in the responsible condition of gesta- tion, being allowed to possess quietly and undistractedly all her bodi- 106 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. Iy energies and nerve forces, to be there concentrated foi carrying on this great life-principle, she is continually interrupted, in the large ma- jority of instances, by the husband's having sexual indulgence, which robs the fetus of the nerve-forces, paralyzes and blights its harmonious development and vital stamina. The sexual orgasm, in both male and female, when cultivated and brought to its highest pitch of excitement during coition, brings, for- the time being, into action the nervous system in the most intensified state of excitement, so that exhaustion always is incurred, and this exhaus- tion, in many, follows to such an extent, that great debility and complete prostration ensue. Every one can see, that when the whole brain and nervous system are involved to the highest magnitude of orgastic excitement by an induced state of the passions, that the nerve-forces of the mother must be distracted and diverted from the embryo or fetus in the womb. So, for the time, more or less, continually, the fetus is shocked by this orgastic excitement on the part of the mother, and in so far as her strength is expended in this manner, is her off- spring robbed of that vital and nerve power which is requisite to de- velop its healthy stamina, and give life-power to its future intellectual energies. Many of the pale, weakly, scrofulous, and deformed offspring that we see every day about us in the streets, and in every department of life, all discover to the acute eye of the experienced physician a cause, namely, that they have been robbed of that nutrition and life-power that belonged to them, but which were expended in the sexual gratification of the passions, on the part of their culpable parents. . I have wit- nessed hundreds, ay, thousands of scrofulous children produced in this manner. Some years ago, when on a professional tour, during the summer season, to Meriden, Ct., ( where I stopped a few weeks to recruit my shattered energies,) I was consulted by an intelligent Irish lady respect- ing her child, a son of between two and three years of age. The child was well shaped and proportioned in every way as children are generally found. It nursed and fed well. But it was weak — it could not bear its own weight when it was old enough, and large enough to have been going alone some ten or twelve months. To this end was our opinion sought. We examined the child minutely in every way — its spine, its limbs, and every part of its organization — to discover if there was any organic disease that might account for this appar- ent debility, and inability to bear its own weight, but none could be found. Our causality and powers of medical discrimination were now taxed to define what really was the cause of this child being in this PTJLMONAKY CONSUMPTION. 107 helpless condition, when so large and so well developed otherwise. After much reflection, it occurred to us that the offspring had been in- jured by want of the requisite vital and nerve-force, while in utero. We, therefore, questioned the mother, with the suggestion that we should ask her a delicate question, but that it was right for us to do so, and that she should consider it as such, and answer us correctly, which she promised to do. She then confessed, in answer to our inquiry, that her husband had been, more or less, constantly with her, hav- ing the greatest amount of sexual indulgence while she was carrying this child. Hence, we were compelled to draw our diagnosis or conclu- sion in accordance, of which we acquainted her, and she rationally coin- cided with us in giving it as her opinion that such was the case. We prescribed a judicious, hygienic course of treatment for this utero-de- vitalized and scrofulous child with the greatest success. We mention this case here as an illustration of thousands of very similar cases, where offsprings are puny, weak, and lacking in vital stamina, not only for development, but even a fair propor- tionate development sufficient to use their limbs or support their bodies, and cany them about. The cause is laid in mtero, in the manner herein described, in which the offspring has been perfectly robbed of the vitality that belonged to it. There are thousands of instances, too, where this devitalizing process has been arrested to such an extent, in the same manner that they become helpless and wretched all through their earthly existence, and pass into the spirit- land, crippled and pigmied, intellectually, in the same manner. When will mankind learn to study themselves — to study the laws of their being, and the responsibility to their own offspring, and above all to God, in the voluntary exercise of those important functions which he has delegated to them ? This brings me, then, in the next place, to consider what are the causes of so many abortions. Of course, the unprofessional reader, w T ho mingles not in the infirmities of mankind, who is not in a situa- tion to be consulted in regard to the many physical disabilities which prevail in the world, can have no idea of the vast number of conceptions which take place in the womb, and which are cast off pre- maturely, undeveloped in shape of abortions ; I mean those abortions not willfully and mechanically produced ; I mean those spontaneous abortions which take place even contrary to the wishes of the mother; for, indeed, in the majority of cases, it brings sorrow to her bosom, and fills her mind with despair, which produces despondency, in the blight- ing of her hopes — to see the fond anticipations that she indulged, after having her longings, like Rachel of old, gratified, in the ardent antici- 103 Pl'LMONARY CONSUMPTION. pation of realizing herself in the daughter, and anticipating the bright- est hopes and prospects of fulfilling her functions, blasted, and that Continually in spontaneous miscarriages, or abortions, for which she herself knows no cause, and which, for their frequency, in many in- stances, make life itself almost a cruel endurance. I well recollect, when yet pursuing my medical studies, that my pre- ceptor was called upon to attend one female who had then miscarried twenty-one times, and each time uterine hemorrhage was so great that it produced entire prostration, and threatened her life. I myself pre- pared the prescriptions and administered them. In my ow T n practice I have met with hundreds of cases where females had aborted, and uterine hemorrhage ensued to an alarming extent. In these cases, the fault was on the part of the female. She herself inherited either a scrofulous predisposition, or else she had so lived, and so been raised by her parents, as to have induced and propagated a scrofulous consti- tution ; by that I mean a condition of the blood destitute in vital principles or necessary elementary materials which are requisite to give vital force, nerve-function, and energy to her ovaries, and to carry on the development of the germ principle in her womb sufficiently to duly organize and mature it for birth. This, then, will explain the cause of the many spontaneous abortions that an experienced physician is made acquainted with. I will again quote Lugol to corroborate my experience on this point : " Where the mother is scrofulous, abortion will not occur if she has been impreg- nated by a healthy, well-made man ; but if her health be much im- paired, it can not frequently be prevented, the mother and child both concurring to produce it. In cases of this kind, as in those stated in the preceding article, the fetus is no sooner conceived than it is scrofu- lous ; it has neither a degree of vitality nor the force necessary to its growth ; it contains the causes of abortion, which are nourished by the materials received in the uterus ; finally, the state of debility of these organs, which does not permit them to support the labor of ges- tation to its full term, which, added to the first two, render abortion more frequent." In a brief work like this, these two striking illustrations for the two fundamental causes of the most appalling instances of Scrofula— namely, those that come to light and assume the hideous protean forms of dis- ease, and perverted shapes, and those that never come to light, but are blighted in the womb, in the shape of spontaneous abortions — will be all-sufficient. But I wish to give one or two farther illustrations from the excellent author from whom I have quoted respecting other forms PULMONAEY CONSUMPTION". 109 of Scrofula which are an every-day occurrence ; for there is scarcely one person in a thousand who ever conjectures. the cause— I mean hair- lip and cleft-palate : " I knew a scrofulous person affected with hair-lip in whom puberty did not ensue until he was thirty years of age, and who married a few years afterward. His wife miscarried constantly, although she seemed to enjoy good health. "I know a family scrofulous, from the incontinence of the father. The mother miscarried five times successively, at four and a half months, although she was healthy. I will also cite the case of a man who married when nearly sixty years old, and whose wife miscarried five times, and never bore a full-grown child. " Here are three very different states of health which alter the gen- erative powers of man to such an extent that the wife constantly miscarries." But there are every-day instances of scrofulous diseases in other forms, in females who are brought to our notice, from our extensive experience in the capacity that we fulfill at the head of a promising institution, the fame of which, we are happy to learn, is becoming ex- tensively diffused throughout the world, from the correct principles of science and conscientious motives which characterize its indefatigable founder and his associates ; we mean that form of Scrofula which is the cause of female weakness, or the combined diseases peculiar to the sexual organs of our modern females, known as leucorrhm, and pro- lapsus of the uterus, and, in many instances, combining also scrofulous thickening, or chronic inflammation and ulceration of the cervix-uteri, or neck of the womb. These combined maladies, are equally alike prevalent in the virgin female as with the married and the matron. It is almost needless for me to say here — what nearly every female reader will recognize to be true, and every mother knows in reference to her own daughter — that leucorrhea, in other words, a morbid dis- charge from the vagina, known as whites, is a very common affection, and scarcely can we except one virgin female in ten, who has passed the age of twelve, who has not, more or less, been subject to it. Leu- corrhea always indicates a morbid condition of the membranes and glands that fine the vagina, and generally the uterus also, and in many instances does it extend clear upward and onward to the ovarian or- gans themselves. To such an extent is this morbid secretion, that it saps the very physical foundation of vital stamina ; it becomes weak- ening and debilitating in the extreme ; it impoverishes the blood, by constantly carrying off the albumen and fibrous materials which consti- tute its momentum and vitality to a great extent ; it weakens the ute- 110 PULMONAKY CONSUMPTION. rus and the ovaries to that extent that it incapacitates the female from becoming a healthy mother ; and when she is married and placed in a condition to become a mother, if she is pregnant, in a large num- ber of instances, it results in abortion, as before described. But this is not all. The constant drain from the blood by undue morbid secretion weakens all the abdominal viscera, the bowels, the glands of the bowels ; it extends to the parenchyma, or tissues that hold the bowels together, so that the whole abdominal viscera, com- mencing with the stomach, the liver, the pancreas, and the intestines, fall down out of place, as is illustrated in the figure shown in this cut, This cut represents the diaphragm, the stomach, liver, and bowels dragged down, pending upon the bladder, and depressing the womb, producing prolapsus, or fall- ing of the womb, caused by constitutional Scrofula. This cut represents a well-formed, healthy female figure, having all the organs in their natural condition. The reader will observe the striking difference in the posi- tion and appearance of the bladder and the uterus from the foregoing figure. PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. Ill In which the reader will see the displacement of all the organs of the abdominal viscera upon themselves, until they depress the uterus out of its normal position, causing this very common malady in females of the present day — prolapsus, or falling of the womb. Let the reader carefully compare the cut which illustrates the dis- placement of the abdominal organs and viscera with the cut which has them in a healthy normal condition, and they will realize at once something of the nature of Scrofula in the enervated condition of the vital organs, and the want of vitality of the system which produces it. To illustrate the appearance of a female when dressed, the subject of prolapsus, leucorrhea, and Scrofula which is seated in her sexual organs, we will give another cut of a female form in full dress, depicting her to the very life as she is met with in society or in her family. This cut represents a constitutionally scrofulous female — the subject of prolapsus uteri, or falling of the womb, and a dragging down out of their natural place the stomach, liver, bowels, and all the organs of the abdominal viscera — as she appears in fashionable society, dressed in gay attire. 112 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. But duty compels me to .again notify the reader that were we to go into a full detail of Scrofula, in all its varied and hideous features of manifestation, and the many aggravated forms of disease induced thereby, it would swell this book beyond our calculation. The curious reader must consult a monograph which we are preparing on the subject of Scrofula at full length. But it will be gratifying to learn that, direful a disease as is Scrofula, like its handmaid, Tubercular Consumption, in many instances science and art afford efficient means to arrest its fatal progress, even when manifested in the hid- eous forms and conditions of childhood, and a permanent cure to those farther advanced, when affected, as with the impotent, prostrate sire, or she who, in the ignorance and innocence of her situation, has taken upon herself that responsible office of becoming a mother, without at the time knowing the bitter consequences that would entail upon her — the innumerable number of abortions — and menace her life with re- peated hemorrhages ; or with the maiden just setting out on the thresh- old of life, and approaching those years when nature seeks to estab- lish that most important function — to qualify her to become a mother ; and she who is now subject to leucorrhea, which menaces her with those visceral, organic weaknesses which, unless remedied, will perchance sacrifice not only health and all the prospects pertaining to the func- tion of maternity, but life itself; there is for her a cure, if timely sought, in the judicious and scientific treatment afforded by the faculty of the Troy Lung and Hygienic Institute. To her who is farther ad- vanced in life, and troubled with that serious modern malady, prolap- sus, we afford her an efficient cure, the beauty and consistency of which combines that happy discovery, to place the treatment effectually in her own hands, without the sacrifice of the comforts of home and the society of her friends, of being under the necessity of going away to an institution to receive treatment. To her it must be encouraging ; it must come almost as a ray of hope in her despondency, that we have de- vised the simplest means, mechanical and local, which she can apply alone by herself, with the utmost facility at her home, even with the greatest success — so astounding have been the improvement of modern medical science, and the discoveries made by our institution. But there is one other form of Scrofula which we have alluded to as once being very common in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and other parts of Europe, namely, that known as bronchocele, or goitre, and which is now becoming very prevalent in the United States. It is found extensively in many locations like that of the Connecticut river, in low, flat, or moist countries, where aguish diseases are so constantly manifested. It is that form of Scrofula which affects the glands of the PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 113 neck, particularly the thyroid gland, more than is diffused in the "blood. _^jSg^u. We are meeting with instances of mM SP^^m ^ s f° rm °f Scrofula in our exten- ^ &JL s i ye practice nearly every day. This «BP /JkP cu * w ^ illustrate a case that we ^ffck *SF have recently treated and cured, of j| ifST a lady, who, by the way, was born J^^g^jll^ in Prussia, and now lives in Schenec- Jm ?JF tady. She has lived several years in ^^fesajfe^^L, tn ^ s country, so that this goitre, or K^S^S ^^^^^^l. ^jj|||||. tubercle of the thyroid gland, had iBm taken on its aggravated feature and IRIP; ^SB InHSllMf development since she came to this ^JPI|-s> ^jp3^^^" "VVe are happy to say that our . . „ „ , . , treatment in dispersing this gland- This cut represents Scrofula as it de- , . , , , ,. ,, velops itself in the form of Bronchocele, ular enlargement has been entirely or goitre — a chronic tubercular enlarge- successful. This goitre, or tubercle ment of the thyroid gland of the neck, of the thyroid gland, when allowed to progress, grows to an enormous extent. We have witnessed many of them in medical cliniques at various medical colleges, grown to such an extent that they raised the chin and impeded respiration by their pressure on the windpipe, so much so, that breathing was very diffi- cult. Scrofulous persons finding themselves thus affected, can not be too solicitous to procure our aid in due season. But there are other cases in which Scrofula is more obscurely laid in infantile life, but slightly observed in childhood, in which circum- stances, for want of right physical education, of good development of strength of constitution in earlier life, cause it to be developed in a melancholy manner in later years of life, in manhood even. We have met in our practice many such cases ; one in particular, that had run into a most aggravated condition, which, previous to coming under our care, bid defiance to some twelve or fourteen other physicians, and had been developed in later periods of fife by vitiated habits formed in childhood or boyhood. As I have before said, the sexual function and appetite is a laudable and noble one when left to the guidance of the natural laws of our constitution, to be developed and brought into action at the proper time, and exercised for its legitimate function ; but if tampered with, prematurely excited and brought into action by artificial excitement, by undue and unnatural stimulation to the organs themselves — ah! 8 114 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. long years in advance of the time that God in his infinite wisdom intended — the consequences are awful in the extreme. The passions of the human mind and physical constitution are an embodiment of our nature so mysterious in their element and charac- ter that, to rightly control and guide them onward through the stage of our physical existence, requires profound wisdom — ah ! it requires the wisdom of sages to rightly comprehend them, to curb them by self-control, and guide them through the dangers of youth as the expe- rienced mariner guides the ship free from the rocks, the shoals, and the quicksands which lie obscured in the mighty ocean ; for these passions of our nature and physical constitution are to the soul, to the life, just like so many obscure rocks and shoals in the ocean to the mariner ; and they become to us, like those to him, unless we understand the great chart of human life and health — can fathom its intricacies, know the thorns and briers which beset our path — the rocks on which we make shipwreck. Therefore, in the condition of civilized life at the present day, which is a very artificial one, we find that mankind instead of possessing accurate knowledge of the laws of life, health, and physical education, and their offspring being developed in accord- ance thereto, that they are prematurely ripened and their passions too early excited. As a gardener develops, by art, in a forcing-bed or green-house, with the combined power of artificial heat, a plant or a flower, and causes it to blossom early, so, in infantile life, childhood and youth are the men of the present age of the world. Their passions become a consuming fire, instead of becoming aids under right, judicious, proper management and culture, for the enjoyment of life and physical existence. To this end, in our narrative, do we see the sexual passion develop- ing Scrofula, and causing infinite suffering and physical devastation in a thousand obscure and wily forms of disease, sapping insidiously the fount of life itself by a morbid excitement of those organs designed by Omnipotent Wisdom, when used judiciously, for the laudable purpose of propagating and unfolding ourselves in our offspring throughout all eternity. To illustrate this point in our narrative of the development of Scrof- ula in manhood, we will introduce a cut here, of a patient whom we have treated, under one of those most appalling circumstances of combined diseases induced by early pandering to the passions, insidi- ously sapping the vitality of the system by silent drain made upon the sexual organs, producing caries of the spine to that extent, that ab« PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 115 scesses were discharged in three different places. The victim passed on from one stage to another, worse and worse ; from the ability of gentle labor and exercise to ex- treme debility and emaciation so great, that he became con- fined to his house and subse- quently to bed. Hectic fever ensued, night-sweats, restless- ness, cough, dryness of the throat and air-passages, tuber cular deposit in the lungs, and morbid appetite. And in this condition he had been seen and^ prescribed for (ineffectually) by twelve physicians ; among them were two professors of a cele- This cut represents true to life a subject of brated medical institution in Scrofula developed in youth by pandering to the Vermont ; but they all failed to passions, producing marasmus or wasting of the give him eith er relief Or cure. iuices of the blood, and thereby softening and T , . ,. . . - .. . . ., . . , . . In this condition the patient canes of the bones of the spine, inducing ab- r scesses and consumption at the age of twenty- wrote to US, or had a letter three years, which was arrested and cured written by his friends, stating under the treatment of Dr. Stone, of the Troy the case minutely in all its Lung and Hygienic Institute. bearings, and soliciting our advice in regard to the chance of any relief. A series of inter- rogatories were nicely replied to, the urine of the patient analyzed, and we gave (by letter) as our opinion, that we could restore the patient, even under this apparently hopeless condition. He paid our fee, and as the last ray of hope, placed himself under our discrimi- nating care. He was then several hundred miles distant. We found, from the history of the case, that, though in a state of hectic fever, and troubled with a severe cough and night-sweats, the patient was being fed (as he afterward confessed to us when he visited us at our Institu- tion) with hot pastries, and for his supper he would have fried dough- nuts, mince-pie, and warm bread and butter ; and when he narrated this, does the reader wonder at us because we occasionally sneer at that old antediluvian race of doctors known as the Allopaths ? We do so from the best motives ; and because we deem it a duty we owe in our professional capacity to suffering humanity — out of philanthropy 116 PULMONAKY CONSUMPTION. and the benevolence of our nature; for we do know that they only prescribe for symptoms, and leave the laws of hygiene and dietetics entirely out of their prescriptions. Hence, we will ever contend against them, so long as they adopt this course, inch by inch, and so long as life endures ! For we are here to fulfill a mission which we have from kind heaven to wage war against such impositions and such quackery as is palmed off upon the community, to induce them to believe that they can be cured by taking drugs and medicines into their stomachs while in the condition this patient was in ; and for being allowed to be fed (by their permission) on such articles of cookery as pastries. If ever ingenuity was taxed to devise the means to poison the human race, and to pervert good health, it could not devise any thing more direct to accomplish it than the articles which this patient was allowed to use, when brought under our care. We corrected his errors of diet, and subjected him to the laws of •hygiene, in order to correct all the deranged functions of the body ; commencing with bathing of the skin every day, or twice a day, and producing an action of the bowels, which before had been torpid and inactive, we thereby corrected a morbid, deranged stomach, liver and digestive functions. We arranged our treatment to quiet and allay the irritability and exalted sensibility of his nervous system ; we gave gentle tonics, combined with proper solvents and correctives, for the poisons in his blood, and such other natural agents provided in the vegetable kingdom by nature, for such emergencies, that would act to stimulate the languid functions, and cause healthy secretions of the kidneys, which were then morbid and vitiated. For the disease of the throat, respiratory organs, and the lungs, we administered our medi- cines rationally, in the shape of inhalation by medicated vapors, and not by sending them upon a blind mission through the stomach, and thereby reduced his cough, overcame the irritation in the broncho- mucous membranes, arrested the tubercarlization or softening process in the lungs, and in eight weeks restored this patient from a sick-bed, so much so, as to enable him to ride out in the open air. This was in the winter. In the summer afterward, he was able to ride one hundred and seventy miles in the cars, and visit our Institution, and exhibit himself as a living monument of our skill, when consistently combined with science and the harmonious laws of nature. So striking was this cure, that the editor of the "West-Troy Demo- crat, who saw him personally, was induced to give this voluntary tes- timony : PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 117 Case of Thomas P. Aboott — Striking Evidence of the Skill of Dr. Stone. We have had occasion frequently, in our editorial capacity, to speak of the great success of Dr. Stone, physician to the Troy Lung and Hygienic Institute, in curing Consumption and chronic diseases. We have had, to-day, an ocular demonstration of his skill, in the person of Thomas P. Abbott, of Windsor, Yt. Mr. Abbott is a young man of about twenty-four years of age. Last Janu- ary he was confined to his bed, with seven large abscesses on his back and spine — suffering extreme pain and restlessness — his limbs drawn up to his body, and prostrated to an extreme state of emaciation and debility, with a harassing cough. In this condition he was attended by many physicians of the neighbor- ing towns and vicinity, among them a distinguished professor in a medical school, all of whom gave his case up as utterly hopeless, and left him to die. In this forlorn situation he wrote and stated his case to Dr. Stone, and was in- duced by the Doctor's encouragement to adopt his treatment. Suffice it to say, that in two months' time Mr. Abbott had improved so much as to be able to walk out of doors. He has continually and steadily progressed under the Doc- tor's scientific and discriminating plan of treatment, so as to be able to ride to Troy a few days since, and exhibit himself in person to the Doctor for the first time. In the mean time two of the abscesses healed ; the excruciating pains have, in a great measure, subsided, as well as the cough. Any one that is longer skeptical of the great skill and success of Doctor Stone in curing obstinate chronic diseases, let them now go to the Institution and see and hear from the lips of Mr. Abbott, personally, as we ourselves have done, the almost miracu- lous improvement and restoration in so short a time, from what was considered a death-bed. US PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. DIPHTHERIA AND PLASTIC BRONCHITIS. "While I am engaged in writing this work for the press, the whole country is pervaded to a most melancholy extent and direful fatality, with what is termed a new disease called Diphtheria. As we have before stated, in the symptoms of Tubercular Consumption, it is not unfrequcntly the case, but it is an every-day occurrence, often, for whole families, to the number of five or six children, to be rapidly swept off by this fatal disease. Measurably, it is characterized by symptoms very similar to what is called Membraneous Croup, but is very different in its nature, in the majority of cases, from Membrane- ous Croup. It is not probable that Diphtheria is a new disease, only that the various forms of diseases which affect the mucous membranes of the throat and air-passages have become so frequent, so numerous, and so fatal in the United States, that this circumstance has led medical men well posted in their department to be more accurate in their scientific diagnosis. Diseases of the same character prevailed in this country, to equally as fatal an extent, some twenty-five or thirty years ago, as an epidemic, ravaging communities with its fatality, and spreading death and dismay wherever it went. The identity of putrid sore-throat, which made such fearful ravages in Albany and other places a quarter of a century ago, with this present malady, seems now to be settled. That malady was char- acterized by well-marked typhoid symptoms, and this indication has its counterpart in the extreme prostration of the Diphtheria of the present day ; namely, in the most alarmingly prostrating symptoms at its first onset. Like Croup, it is accompanied by the formation of false membranes in the windpipe, which, if left to themselves, accumulate until the air-passages are closed up, and death ensues. But the false membranes of Croup are an exudation of natural lymph from the ves- sels and mucous membranes, which are stimulated to excess by a high febrile condition of the tissues ; while, on the other hand, Diphtheria is scarcely ever febrile in its pathology, and its false membranes arc the DIPHTHERIA AND PLASTIC BRONCHITIS. 119 result of a sloughing off, rather than an exudation of the mucous coat- ing. Croup belongs to the inflammatory type of disease ; Diphtheria, save in exceptional cases, does not. In Croup, the breath of the pa- tient is usually untainted ; in Diphtheria, the breath is characterized by a peculiar, and sometimes almost intolerable fetor. The lymphatic discharges of Croup are seldom acrid ; the discharges from the nose and mouth of the diphtheritic patient are ichorous and excoriating to the highest degree. Croup is not particularly prostrating to the general strength of the person attacked by it ; Diphtheria is invariably accom- panied with extreme debility and a loss of muscular as well as nervous tone, which often continues for months after the immediately danger- ous symptoms have been overcome. Finally, Diphtheria is contagious ; Croup is not. It will be seen from these details, that Diphtheria and Quinsy, or quinsy sore-throat, have more intimate points of resemblance than Diphtheria and Croup. In certain cases this resemblance is greatly increased by a complica- tion of the false membraneous symptom of Diphtheria with malignant inflammation of the tonsils ; still the false membraneous symptom is, of course, always sufficient to distinguish from Quinsy, to the prac- ticed eye. If the reader is not accustomed to witness the distressing features that characterize Membraneous Croup, and the melancholy spectacle which the medical practitioner is but too often called upon to witness, when death ensues in that very mechanical manner, by the blocking up of the larynx and the windpipe, from the accumulations of false mem- branes, and the other attendant constitutional irritation, let him read the graphic description of it in the section on " The Causes for Tuber- cular Consumption," and its connection in its nature with that fatal destroyer. Equally as distressing, in many instances, are the deaths in Diph- theria, but not so generally in this respect, namely, owing to the early depression and complete prostration of the energies of the brain and nervous system and the vitality of the body, which has been pro- duced, as you will understand, from a more subtle and malignant cause than that which produced Membraneous Croup. Hence, in a case of death by diphtheria, we are not called to witness the awful, distressing spectacles — the anxious expression, the rolling eye — to the last moment, if not taken away suddenly by convulsions, seeming to demand from the physician, in the last agony of death, by ocular and arduous solicitation for relief, an assistance which science is not able to give ; for long before death takes place in Diphtheria, all power of ex- 120 PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. ternal recognition is lost; for the brain, the citadel of the soul, has been too much shocked to maintain to the last periods of existence all the feeling of vitality, and the agonies produced by the disease, as in Mem- braneous Croup. Although, in many instances of deaths from Diph- theria, the windpipe and bronchial tubes are obstructed by the accumu- lation of a false membraneous deposit, and to the eye of the spectator seems to denote a most distressing mechanical death by suffocation. It is merciful for the patient that he has lost his power of external sensibility to suffering. As the ultimate effects and physical manifestations of the two dis- eases are really very different, then, in their nature, so also must be the causes. The immediate exciting cause for Membraneous Croup is a sudden cold, from sudden changes in the atmosphere, exposure to dampness, and a consequent repelling of the temperature of the blood thereby from the external surface and the extremities inwardly, so that an inward inflammation or fever seizes the internal membranes of the larynx, the throat, and frequently the bronchia. But in Diphtheria the exciting cause is malarious or miasmatic ; in other words, a certain subtle poison in the atmosphere, as in Typhus or Typhoid Fever, Cholera, Intermittent Fever, that suddenly gives rise to this peculiar morbid effect or modification. Consequently the contagious nature of Diphtheria is owing to this malignant atmospher- ical cause in part. But the question again arises here, if the cause is in the atmosphere, and it pervades the whole country at once, more or less so, and is breathed alike by every person, why are not the atmospherical effects more general ? Why does it skip over certain towns, or families in towns, seize upon others, and not unfrequently sweep of a whole family at once ? These are very important questions — questions that involve the whole science of physical education, as it were, and complete the science of human life, physiologically speaking. We could answer this question directly, by citing the same coincid- ences and circumstances when Cholera pervaded the country and the world. So also has it been with every other epidemic. The reader will not fail to bear in mind the same chain of philoso- phy which we intend to apply to this epidemic (Diphtheria) that we have applied to Tubercular Consumption. Why does death sit back, as a great strategist, looking keenly and watching discriminatingly to seize upon his victim, here and there, so unawares, laying waste whole families, as in Tubercular Consumption — selecting the fairest and most promising of earth — children whose intellects were so precocious as to afford the most powerful evidence of genius, and excite hopes in the DIPHTHERIA AND PLASTIC BRONCHITIS. 121 doting parents and friends of prospects in the future, glowing with the magnificence of their conceptions? Ah! yes, why is this? For the very reason that I have ever endeavored to show ; namely, that \h