CONTAINING
WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE
IN VIVUM CORPUSAGUNT MEDICAMENTA.
IN VIVUM CORPUSAGUNT MEDICAMENTA.
IN VIVUM CORPUS
AGUNT MEDICAMENTA.
The Materia Medicaincludes all those substances, which may contribute to the restoration of health. These may be conveniently distributed under seven articles according to the diversity of their operations.
1.Nutrientia, or those things which preserve in their natural state the due exertions of all the irritative motions.
2.Incitantia, or those things which increase the exertions of all the irritative motions.
3.Secernentia, or those things which increase the irritative motions, which constitute secretion.
4.Sorbentia, or those things which increase the irritative motions, which constitute absorption.
5.Invertentia, or those things which invert the natural order of the successive irritative motions.
6.Revertentia, or those things which restore the natural order of the inverted irritative motions.
7.Torpentia, those things which diminish the exertions of all the irritative motions.
It is necessary to apprize the reader, that in the following account of the virtues of Medicines their usual doses are always supposed to be exhibited; and the patient to be exposed to the degree of exterior heat, which he has been accustomed to, (where the contrary is not mentioned), as any variation of either of these circumstances varies their effects.
OF THE
I.1. Those things, which preserve in their natural state the due exertions of all the irritative motions, are termed nutrientia; they produce the growth, and restore the waste, of the system. These consist of a variety of mild vegetable and animal substances, water, and air.
2. Where stronger stimuli have been long used, they become necessary for this purpose, as mustard, spice, salt, beer, wine, vinegar, alcohol, opium. Which however, as they are unnatural stimuli, and difficult to manage in respect to quantity, are liable to shorten the span of human life, sooner rendering the system incapable of being stimulated into action by the nutrientia. See Sect XXXVII. 4. On the same account life is shorter in warmer climates than in more temperate ones.
II.Observations on the Nutrientia.
I.1. The flesh of animals contains more nourishment, and stimulates our absorbent and secerning vessels more powerfully, than the vegetable productions, which we use as food; for the carnivorous animals can fast longer without injury than the graminivorous; and we feel ourselves warmer and stronger after a meal of flesh than of grain. Hence in diseases attended with cold extremities and general debility this kind of diet is preferred; as in rickets, dropsy, scrophula, and in hysteric and hypochondriac cases, and to prevent the returns of agues. Might not flesh in small quantities bruised to a pulp be more advantageously used in fevers attended with debility than vegetable diet?
That flesh, which is of the darkest colour, generally contains more nourishment, and stimulates our vessels more powerfully, than the white kinds. The flesh of the carnivorous and piscivorous animals is so stimulating, that it seldom enters into the food of European nations, except the swine, the Soland goose (Pelicanus Bassanus), and formerly the swan. Of these the swine and the swan are fed previously upon vegetable aliment; and the Soland goose is taken in very small quantity, only as a whet to the appetite. Next to these are the birds, that feed upon insects, which are perhaps the most stimulating and the most nutritive of our usual food.
It is said that a greater quantity of volatile alkali can be obtained from this kind of flesh, to which has been ascribed its stimulating quality. But it is more probable, that fresh flesh contains only the elements of volatile alkali.
2. Next to the dark coloured flesh of animals, the various tribes of shell-fish seem to claim their place, and the wholesome kinds of mushrooms, which must be esteemed animal food, both for their alkalescent tendency, their stimulating quality, and the quantity of nourishment, which they afford; as oysters, lobsters, crabfish, shrimps; mushrooms; to which perhaps might be added some of the fish without scales; as the eel, barbolt, tench, smelt, turbot, turtle.
The flesh of many kinds of fish, when it is supposed to have undergone a beginning putrefaction, becomes luminous in the dark. This seems to shew a tendency in the phosphorus to escape, and combine with the oxygen of the atmosphere; and would hence shew, that this kind of flesh is not so perfectly animalized as those before mentioned. This light, as it is frequently seen on rotten wood, and sometimes on veal, which has been kept too long, as I have been told, is commonly supposed to have its cause from putrefaction; but is nevertheless most probably of phosphoric origin, like that seen in the dark on oyster-shells, which have previously been ignited, and afterwards exposed to the sunshine, and on the Bolognian stone. See Botan. Gard. Vol. I. Cant. I. line 1 and 2, the note.
3. The flesh of young animals, as of lamb, veal, and sucking pigs, supplies us with a still less stimulating food. The broth of these is said to become sour, and continues so a considerable time before it changes into putridity; so much does their flesh partake of the chemical properties of the milk, with which these animals are nourished.
4. The white meats, as of turkey, partridge, pheasant, fowl, with their eggs, seem to be the next in mildness; and hence are generally first allowed to convalescents from inflammatory diseases.
5. Next to those should be ranked the white river-fish, which have scales, as pike, perch, gudgeon.
II.1. Milk unites the animal with the vegetable source of our nourishment, partaking of the properties of both. As it contains sugar, and will therefore ferment and produce a kind of wine or spirit, which is a common liquor in Siberia; or will run into an acid by simple agitation, as in the churning of cream; and lastly, as it contains coagulable lymph, which will undergo the process of putrefaction like other animal substances, as in old cheese.
2. Milk may be separated by rest or by agitation into cream, butter, butter-milk, whey, curd. The cream is easier of digestion to adults, because it contains less of the coagulum or cheesy part, and is also more nutritive. Butter consisting of oil between an animal and vegetable kind contains still more nutriment, and in its recent state is not difficult of digestion if taken in moderate quantity. See Art.I. 2. 3. 2. Butter-milk if it be not bitter is an agreeable and nutritive fluid, if it be bitter it has some putrid parts of the cream in it, which had been kept too long; but is perhaps not less wholesome for being sour to a certain degree: as the inferior people in Scotland choose sour milk in preference to skimmed milk before it is become sour. Whey is the least nutritive and easiest of digestion. And in the spring of the year, when the cows feed on young grass, it contains so much of vegetable properties, as to become a salutary potation, when drank to about a pint every morning to those, who during the winter have taken too little vegetable nourishment, and who are thence liable to bilious concretions.
3. Cheese is of various kinds, according to the greater or less quantity of cream, which it contains, and according to its age. Those cheeses, which are easiest broken to pieces in the mouth, are generally easiest of digestion, and contain most nutriment. Some kinds of cheese, though slow of digestion, are also slow in changing by chemical processes in the stomach, and therefore will frequently agree well with those, who have a weak digestion; as I have seen toasted cheese vomited up a whole day after it was eaten without having undergone any apparent change, or given any uneasiness to the patient. It is probable a portion of sugar, or of animal fat, or of the gravy of boiled or roasted meat, mixed with cheese at the time of making it, might add to its pleasant and nutritious quality.
4. The reason, why autumnal milk is so much thicker or coagulable than vernal milk, is not easy to understand, but as new milk is in many respects similar to chyle, it may be considered as food already in part digested by the animal it is taken from, and thence supplies a nutriment of easy digestion. But as it requires to be curdled by the gastric acid, before it can enter the lacteals, as is seen in the stomachs of calves, it seems more suitable to children, whose stomachs abound more with acidity, than to adults; but nevertheless supplies good nourishment to many of the latter, and particularly to those, who use vegetable food, and whose stomachs have not been much accustomed to the unnatural stimulus of spice, salt, and spirit. See ClassI. 1. 2. 5.
III.1. The seeds, roots, leaves, and fruits of plants, constitute the greatest part of the food of mankind; the respective quantities of nourishment, which these contain, may perhaps be estimated from the quantity of starch, or of sugar, they can be made to produce: in farinaceous seeds, the mucilage seems gradually to be converted into starch, while they remain in our granaries; and the starch by the germination of the young plant, as in making malt from barley, or by animal digestion, is converted into sugar. Hence old wheat and beans contain more starch than new; and in our stomachs other vegetable and animal materials are converted into sugar; which constitutes in all creatures a part of their chyle.
Hence it is probable, that sugar is the most nutritive part of vegetables; and that they are more nutritive, as they are convertible in greater quantity into sugar by the power of digestion; as appears from sugar being found in the chyle of all animals, and from its existing in great quantity in the urine of patients in the diabætes, of which a curious case is related in Sect. XXIX. 4. where a man labouring under this malady eat and drank an enormous quantity, and sometimes voided sixteen pints of water in a day, with an ounce of sugar in each pint.
2. Oil, when mixed with mucilage or coagulable lymph, as in cream or new milk, is easy of digestion, and constitutes probably the most nutritive part of animal diet; as oil is another part of the chyle of all animals. As these two materials, sugar and butter, contain much nutriment under a small volume, and readily undergo some chemical change so as to become acid or rancid; they are liable to disturb weak stomachs, when taken in large quantity, more than aliment, which contains less nourishment, and is at the same time less liable to chemical changes; because the chyle is produced quicker than the torpid lacteals can absorb it, and thence undergoes a further chemical process. Sugar and butter therefore are not so easily digested, when taken in large quantity, as those things, which contain less nutriment; hence, where the stomach is weak, they must be used in less quantity. But the custom of some people in restraining children entirely from them, is depriving them of a very wholesome, agreeable, and substantial part of their diet. Honey, manna, sap-juice, are different kinds of less pure sugar.
3. All the esculent vegetables contain a bland oil, or mucilage, or starch, or sugar, or acid; and, as their stimulus is moderate, are properly given alone as food in inflammatory diseases; and mixed with milk constitute the food of thousands. Other vegetables possess various degrees and various kinds of stimulus; and to these we are beholden for the greater part of our Materia Medica, which produce nausea, sickness, vomiting, catharsis, intoxication, inflammation, and even death, if unskilfully administered.
The acrid or intoxicating, and other kinds of vegetable juices, such as produce sickness, or evacuate the bowels, or such even as are only disagreeable to the palate, appear to be a part of the defence of those vegetables, which possess them, from the assaults of larger animals or of insects. As mentioned in the Botanic Garden, Part II. Cant. I. line 161, note. This appears in a forcible manner from the perusal of some travels, which have been published of those unfortunate people, who have suffered shipwreck on uncultivated countries, and have with difficulty found food to subsist, in otherwise not inhospitable climates.
4. As these acrid and intoxicating juices generally reside in the mucilage, and not in the starch of many roots, and seeds, according to the observation of M. Parmentier, the wholesome or nutritive parts of some vegetables may be thus separated from the medicinal parts of them. Thus if the root of white briony be rasped into cold water, by means of a bread-grater made of a tinned iron plate, and agitated in it, the acrid juice of the root along with the mucilage will be dissolved, or swim, in the water; while a starch perfectly wholesome and nutritious will subside, and may be used as food in times of scarcity.
M. Parmentier further observes, that potatoes contain too much mucilage in proportion to their starch, which prevents them from being converted into good bread. But that if the starch be collected from ten pounds of raw potatoes by grating them into cold water, and agitating them, as above mentioned; and if the starch thus procured be mixed with other ten pounds of boiled potatoes, and properly subjected to fermentation like wheat flour, that it will make as good bread as the finest wheat.
Good bread may also be made by mixing wheat-flour with boiled potatoes. Eighteen pounds of wheat flour are said to make twenty-two pounds and a half of bread. Eighteen pounds of wheat-flour mixed with nine pounds of boiled potatoes, are said to make twenty-nine pounds and a half of bread. This difference of weight must arise from the difference of the previous dryness of the two materials. The potatoes might probably make better flour, if they were boiled in steam, in a close vessel, made some degrees hotter than common boiling water.
Other vegetable matters may be deprived of their too great acrimony by boiling in water, as the great variety of the cabbage, the young tops of white briony, water-cresses, asparagus, with innumerable roots, and some fruits. Other plants have their acrid juices or bitter particles diminished by covering them from the light by what is termed blanching them, as the stems and leaves of cellery, endive, sea-kale. The former method either extracts or decomposes the acrid particles, and the latter prevents them from being formed. See Botanic Garden, Vol. I. additional note XXXIV. on the Etiolation of vegetables.
5. The art of cookery, by exposing vegetable and animal substances to heat, has contributed to increase the quantity of the food of mankind by other means besides that of destroying their acrimony. One of these is by converting the acerb juices of some fruits into sugar, as in the baking of unripe pears, and the bruising of unripe apples; in both which situations the life of the vegetable is destroyed, and the conversion of the harsh juice into a sweet one must be performed by a chemical process; and not by a vegetable one only, as the germination of barley in making malt has generally been supposed.
Some circumstances, which seem to injure the life of several fruits, seem to forward the saccharine process of their juices. Thus if some kinds of pears are gathered a week before they would ripen on the tree, and are laid on a heap and covered, their juice becomes sweet many days sooner. The taking off a circular piece of the bark from a branch of a pear-tree causes the fruit of that branch to ripen sooner by a fortnight, as I have more than once observed. The wounds made in apples by insects occasion those apples to ripen sooner; caprification, or the piercing of figs, in the island of Malta, is said to ripen them sooner; and I am well informed, that when bunches of grapes in this country have acquired their expected size, that if the stalk of each bunch be cut half through, that they will sooner ripen.
The germinating barley in the malt-house I believe acquires little sweetness, till the life of the seed is destroyed, and the saccharine process then continued or advanced by the heat in drying it. Thus in animal digestion, the sugar produced in the stomach is absorbed by the lacteals as fast as it is made, otherwise it ferments, and produces flatulency; so in the germination of barley in the malt-house, so long as the new plant lives, the sugar, I suppose, is absorbed as fast as it is made; but that, which we use in making beer, is the sugar produced by a chemical process after the death of the young plant, or which is made more expeditiously, than the plant can absorb it.
It is probably this saccharine process, which obtains in new hay-stacks too hastily, and which by immediately running into fermentation produces so much heat as to set them on fire. The greatest part of the grain, or seeds, or roots, used in the distilleries, as wheat, canary seed, potatoes, are not I believe previously subjected to germination, but are in part by a chemical process converted into sugar, and immediately subjected to vinous fermentation; and it is probable a process may sometime be discovered of producing sugar from starch or meal; and of separating it from them for domestic purposes by alcohol, which dissolves sugar but not mucilage; or by other means.
Another method of increasing the nutriment of mankind by cookery, is by dissolving cartilages and bones, and tendons, and probably some vegetables, in steam or water at a much higher degree of heat than that of boiling. This is to be done in a close vessel, which is called Papin's digester; in which, it is said, that water may be made red-hot, and will then dissolve all animal substances; and might thus add to our quantity of food in times of scarcity. This vessel should be made of iron, and should have an oval opening at top, with an oval lid of iron larger than the aperture; this lid should be slipped in endways, when the vessel is filled, and then turned, and raised by a screw above it into contact with the under edges of the aperture. There should also be a small tube or hole covered with a weighted valve to prevent the danger of bursting the digester.
Where the powers of digestion are weakened, broths made by boiling animal and vegetable substances in water afford a nutriment; though I suppose not so great as the flesh and vegetables would afford, if taken in their solid form, and mixed with saliva in the act of mastication. The aliment thus prepared should be boiled but a short time, nor should be suffered to continue in our common kitchen-utensils afterwards, as they are lined with a mixture of half lead and half tin, and are therefore unwholesome, though the copper is completely covered. And those soups, which have any acid or wine boiled in them, unless they be made in silver, or in china, or in those pot-vessels, which are not glazed by the addition of lead, are truly poisonous; as the acid, as lemon-juice or vinegar, when made hot, erodes or dissolves the lead and tin lining of the copper-vessels, and the leaden glaze of the porcelain ones. Hence, where silver cannot be had, iron vessels are preferable to tinned copper ones; or those made of tinned iron-plates in the common tin-shops, which are said to be covered with pure or block tin.
6. Another circumstance, which facilitates the nourishment of mankind, is the mechanic art of grinding farinaceous seeds into powder between mill-stones; which may be called the artificial teeth of society. It is probable, that some soft kinds of wood, especially when they have undergone a kind of fermentation, and become of looser texture, might be thus used as food in times of famine.
Nor is it improbable, that hay, which has been kept in stacks, so as to undergo the saccharine process, may be so managed by grinding and by fermentation with yeast like bread, as to serve in part for the sustenance of mankind in times of great scarcity. Dr. Priestley gave to a cow for some time a strong infusion of hay in large quantity for her drink, and found that she produced during this treatment above double the quantity of milk. Hence if bread cannot be made from ground hay, there is great reason to suspect, that a nutritive beverage may be thus prepared either in its saccharine state, or fermented into a kind of beer.
In times of great scarcity there are other vegetables, which though not in common use, would most probably afford wholesome nourishment, either by boiling them, or drying and grinding them, or by both those processes in succession. Of these are perhaps the tops and the bark of all those vegetables, which are armed with thorns or prickles, as gooseberry trees, holly, gorse, and perhaps hawthorn. The inner bark of the elm tree makes a kind of gruel. And the roots of fern, and probably of very many other roots, as of grass and of clover taken up in winter, might yield nourishment either by boiling or baking, and separating the fibres from the pulp by beating them; or by getting only the starch from those, which possess an acrid mucilage, as the white briony.
7. However the arts of cookery and of grinding may increase or facilitate the nourishment of mankind, the great source of it is from agriculture. In the savage state, where men live solely by hunting, I was informed by Dr. Franklin, that there was seldom more than one family existed in a circle of five miles diameter; which in a state of pasturage would support some hundred people, and in a state of agriculture many thousands. The art of feeding mankind on so small a grain as wheat, which seems to have been discovered in Egypt by the immortal name of Ceres, shewed greater ingenuity than feeding them with the large roots of potatoes, which seem to have been a discovery of ill-fated Mexico.
This greater production of food by agriculture than by pasturage, shews that a nation nourished by animal food will be less numerous than if nourished by vegetable; and the former will therefore be liable, if they are engaged in war, to be conquered by the latter, as Abel was slain by Cain. This is perhaps the only valid argument against inclosing open arable fields. The great production of human nourishment by agriculture and pasturage evinces the advantage of society over the savage state; as the number of mankind becomes increased a thousand fold by the arts of agriculture and pasturage; and their happiness is probably under good governments improved in as great a proportion, as they become liberated from the hourly fear of beasts of prey, from the daily fear of famine, and of the occasional incursions of their cannibal neighbours.
But pasturage cannot exist without property both in the soil, and the herds which it nurtures; and for the invention of arts, and production of tools necessary to agriculture, some must think, and others labour; and as the efforts of some will be crowned with greater success than that of others, an inequality of the ranks of society must succeed; but this inequality of mankind in the present state of the world is too great for the purposes of producing the greatest quantity of human nourishment, and the greatest sum of human happiness; there should be no slavery at one end of the chain of society, and no despotism at the other.—By the future improvements of human reason such governments may possibly hereafter be established, as may a hundred-fold increase the numbers of mankind, and a thousand-fold their happiness.
IV.1. Water must be considered as a part of our nutriment, because so much of it enters the composition of our solids as well as of our fluids; and because vegetables are now believed to draw almost the whole of their nourishment from this source. As in them the water is decomposed, as it is perspired by them in the sunshine, the oxygen gas increases the quantity and the purity of the atmosphere in their vicinity, and the hydrogen seems to be retained, and to form the nutritive juices, and consequent secretions of rosin, gum, wax, honey, oil, and other vegetable productions. See Botanic Garden, Part I. Cant. IV. line 25, note. It has however other uses in the system, besides that of a nourishing material, as it dilutes our fluids, and lubricates our solids; and on all these accounts a daily supply of it is required.
2. River-water is in general purer than spring-water; as the neutral salts washed down from the earth decompose each other, except perhaps the marine salt; and the earths, with which spring-water frequently abounds, is precipitated; yet it is not improbable, that the calcareous earth dissolved in the water of many springs may contribute to our nourishment, as the water from springs, which contain earth, is said to conduce to enrich those lands, which are flooded with it, more than river water.
3. Many arguments seem to shew, that calcareous earth contributes to the nourishment of animals and vegetables. First because calcareous earth constitutes a considerable part of them, and must therefore either be received from without, or formed by them, or both, as milk, when taken as food by a lactescent woman, is decomposed in the stomach by the process of digestion, and again in part converted into milk by the pectoral glands. Secondly, because from the analogy of all organic life, whatever has composed a part of a vegetable or animal may again after its chemical solution become a part of another vegetable or animal, such is the general transmigration of matter. And thirdly, because the great use of lime in agriculture on almost all kinds of soil and situation cannot be satisfactorily explained from its chemical properties alone. Though these may also in certain soils and situations have considerable effect.
The chemical uses of lime in agriculture may be, 1. from its destroying in a short time the cohesion of dead vegetable fibres, and thus reducing them to earth, which otherwise is effected by a slow process either by the consumption of insects or by a gradual putrefaction. Thus I am informed that a mixture of lime with oak bark, after the tanner has extracted from it whatever is soluble in water, will in two or three months reduce it to a fine black earth, which, if only laid in heaps, would require as many years to effect by its own spontaneous fermentation or putrefaction. This effect of lime must be particularly advantageous to newly inclosed commons when first broken up.
Secondly, lime for many months continues to attract moisture from the air or earth, which it deprives I suppose of carbonic acid, and then suffers it to exhale again, as is seen on the plastered walls of new houses. On this account it must be advantageous when mixed with dry or sandy soils, as it attracts moisture from the air above or the earth beneath, and this moisture is then absorbed by the lymphatics of the roots of vegetables. Thirdly, by mixing lime with clays it is believed to make them less cohesive, and thus to admit of their being more easily penetrated by vegetable fibres. A mixture of lime with clays destroys their superabundancy of acid, if such exists, and by uniting with it converts it into gypsum or alabaster. And lastly, fresh lime destroys worms, snails, and other insects, with which it happens to come in contact.
Yet do not all these chemical properties seem to account for the great uses of lime in almost all soils and situations, as it contributes so much to the melioration of the crops, as well as to their increase in quantity. Wheat from land well limed is believed by farmers, millers, and bakers, to be, as they suppose, thinner skinned; that is, it turns out more and better flour; which I suppose is owing to its containing more starch and less mucilage. In respect to grass-ground I am informed, that if a spadeful of lime be thrown on a tussock, which horses or cattle have refused to touch for years, they will for many succeeding seasons eat it quite close to the ground.
One property of lime is not perhaps yet well understood, I mean its producing so much heat, when it is mixed with water; which may be owing to the elementary fluid of heat consolidated in the lime. It is the steam occasioned by this heat, when water is sprinkled upon lime, if the water be not in too great quantity or too cold, which breaks the lime into such fine powder as almost to become fluid, which cannot be effected perhaps by any other means, and which I suppose must give great preference to lime in agriculture, and to the solutions of calcareous earth in water, over chalk or powdered limestone, when spread upon the land.
4. It was formerly believed that waters replete with calcareous earth, such as incrust the inside of tea-kettles, or are laid to petrify moss, were liable to produce or to increase the stone in the bladder. This mistaken idea has lately been exploded by the improved chemistry, as no calcareous earth, or a very minute quantity, was found in the calculi analysed by Scheel and Bergman. The waters of Matlock and of Carlsbad, both which cover the moss, which they pass through, with a calcareous crust, are so far from increasing the stone of the bladder or kidnies, that those of Carlsbad are celebrated for giving relief to those labouring under these diseases. Philos. Trans. Those of Matlock are drank in great quantities without any suspicion of injury; and I well know a person who for above ten years has drank about two pints a day of cold water from a spring, which very much incrusts the vessels, it is boiled in, with calcareous earth, and affords a copious calcareous sediment with a solution of salt of tartar, and who enjoys a state of uninterrupted health.
V.1. As animal bodies consist much both of oxygen and azote, which make up the composition of atmospheric air, these should be counted amongst nutritious substances. Besides that by the experiments of Dr. Priestley it appears, that the oxygen gains admittance into the blood through the moist membranes of the lungs; and seems to be of much more immediate consequence to the preservation of our lives than the other kinds of nutriment above specified.
As the basis of fixed air, or carbonic acid gas, is carbone, which also constitutes a great part both of vegetable and animal bodies; this air should likewise be reckoned amongst nutritive substances. Add to this, that when this carbonic acid air is swallowed, as it escapes from beer or cyder, or when water is charged with it as detruded from limestone by vitriolic acid, it affords an agreeable sensation both to the palate and stomach, and is therefore probably nutritive.
The immense quantity of carbone and of oxygen which constitute so great a part of the limestone countries is almost beyond conception, and, as it has been formed by animals, may again become a part of them, as well as the calcareous matter with which they are united. Whence it may be conceived, that the waters, which abound with limestone in solution, may supply nutriment both to animals and to vegetables, as mentioned above.
VI.1. The manner, in which nutritious particles are substituted in the place of those, which are mechanically abraded, or chemically decomposed, or which vanish by animal absorption, must be owing to animal appetency, as described in Sect. XXXVII. 3. and is probably similar to the process of inflammation, which produces new vessels and new fluids; or to that which constitutes the growth of the body to maturity. Thus the granulations of new flesh to repair the injuries of wounds are visible to the eye; as well as the callous matter, which cements broken bones; the calcareous matter, which repairs injured snail-shells; and the threads, which are formed by silk-worms and spiders; which are all secreted in a softer state, and harden by exsiccation, or by the contact of the air, or by absorption of their more fluid parts.
Whether the materials, which thus supply the waste of the system, can be given any other way than by the stomach, so as to preserve the body for a length of time, is worth our inquiry; as cases sometimes occur, in which food cannot be introduced into the stomach, as in obstructions of the œsophagus, inflammations of the throat, or in hydrophobia; and other cases are not unfrequent in which the power of digestion is nearly or totally destroyed, as in anorexia epileptica, and in many fevers.
In the former of these circumstances liquid nutriment may sometimes be got into the stomach through a flexible catheter; as described in ClassIII. 1. 1. 15. In the latter many kinds of mild aliment, as milk or broth, have frequently been injected as clysters, together with a small quantity of opium, as ten drops of the tincture, three or four times a day; to which also might be added very small quantities of vinous spirit. But these, as far as I have observed, will not long sustain a person, who cannot take any sustenance by the stomach.
2. Another mode of applying nutritive fluids might be by extensive fomentations, or by immerging the whole body in a bath of broth, or of warm milk, which might at the same time be coagulated by rennet, or the acid of the calf's stomach; broth or whey might thus probably be introduced, in part at least, into the circulation, as a solution of nitre is said to have been absorbed in a pediluvium, which was afterwards discovered by the manner in which paper dipped frequently in the urine of the patient and dried, burnt and sparkled like touch-paper. Great quantity of water is also known to be absorbed by those, who have bathed in the warm bath after exercise and abstinence from liquids. Cleopatra was said to travel with 4000 milch-asses in her train, and to bathe every morning in their milk, which she probably might use as a cosmetic rather than a nutritive.
3. The transfusion of blood from another animal into the vein of one, who could take no sustenance by the throat, or digest none by the stomach, might long continue to support him; and perhaps other nutriment, as milk or mucilage, might be this way introduced into the system, but we have not yet sufficient experiments on this subject. See Sect. XXXII. 4. and ClassI. 2. 3. 25. and Sup. I.14. 2.
VII. Various kinds of condiments, or sauces, have been taken along with vegetable or animal food, and have been thought by some to strengthen the process of digestion and consequent process of nutrition. Of these wine, or other fermented liquors, vinegar, salt, spices, and mustard, have been in most common use, and I believe to the injury of thousands. As the stomach by their violent stimulus at length loses its natural degree of irritability, and indigestion is the consequence; which is attended with flatulency and emaciation. Where any of these have been taken so long as to induce a habit, they must either be continued, but not increased; or the use of them should be gradually and cautiously diminished or discontinued, as directed in Sect. XII. 7. 8.
III.Catalogue of the Nutrientia.
I.1. Venison, beef, mutton, hare, goose, duck, woodcock, snipe, moor-game.2. Oysters, lobsters, crabs, shrimps, mushrooms, eel, tench, barbolt, smelt, turbot, sole, turtle.3. Lamb, veal, sucking-pig.4. Turkey, partridge, pheasant, fowl, eggs.5. Pike, perch, gudgeon, trout, grayling.II. Milk, cream, butter, buttermilk, whey, cheese.III. Wheat, barley, oats, peas, potatoes, turnips, carrots, cabbage, asparagus, artichoke, spinach, beet, apple, pear, plum, apricot, nectarine, peach, strawberry, grape, orange, melon, cucumber, dried figs, raisins, sugar, honey. With a great variety of other roots, seeds, leaves, and fruits.IV. Water, river-water, spring-water, calcareous earth.V. Air, oxygene, azote, carbonic acid gas.VI. Nutritive baths and clysters, transfusion of blood.VII. Condiments.
I.1. Venison, beef, mutton, hare, goose, duck, woodcock, snipe, moor-game.
2. Oysters, lobsters, crabs, shrimps, mushrooms, eel, tench, barbolt, smelt, turbot, sole, turtle.
3. Lamb, veal, sucking-pig.
4. Turkey, partridge, pheasant, fowl, eggs.
5. Pike, perch, gudgeon, trout, grayling.
II. Milk, cream, butter, buttermilk, whey, cheese.
III. Wheat, barley, oats, peas, potatoes, turnips, carrots, cabbage, asparagus, artichoke, spinach, beet, apple, pear, plum, apricot, nectarine, peach, strawberry, grape, orange, melon, cucumber, dried figs, raisins, sugar, honey. With a great variety of other roots, seeds, leaves, and fruits.
IV. Water, river-water, spring-water, calcareous earth.
V. Air, oxygene, azote, carbonic acid gas.
VI. Nutritive baths and clysters, transfusion of blood.
VII. Condiments.
I.1. Those things, which increase the exertions of all the irritative motions, are termed incitantia. As alcohol, or the spirituous part of fermented liquors, opium, and many drugs, which are still esteemed poisons, their proper doses not being ascertained. To these should be added the exhilarating passions of the mind, as joy, love: and externally the application of heat, electricity, æther, essential oils, friction, and exercise.
2. These promote both the secretions and absorptions, increase the natural heat, and remove those pains, which originate from the defect of irritative motions, termed nervous pains; and prevent the convulsions consequent to them. When given internally they induce costiveness, and deep coloured urine; and by a greater dose intoxication, and its consequences.
II.Observations on the Incitantia.
I.1. Opium and alcohol increase all the secretions and absorptions. The increase of the secretion of sensorial power appears from the violent exertions of drunken people; the secretion of sweat is more certainly excited by opium or wine than by any other medicine; and the increase of general heat, which these drugs produce, is an evidence of their effect in promoting all the secretions; since an increase of secretion is always attended with increase of heat in the part, as in hepatic and other inflammations.
2. But as they at the same time promote absorption; those fluids, which are secreted into receptacles, as the urine, bile, intestinal and pulmonary mucus, have again their thinner parts absorbed; and hence, though the quantity of secreted fluid was increased, yet as the absorption was also increased, the excretion from these receptacles is lessened; at the same time that it is deeper coloured or of thicker consistence, as the urine, alvine feces, and pulmonary mucus. Whereas the perspiration being secreted on the surface of the body is visible in its increased quantity, before it can be reabsorbed; whence arises that erroneous opinion, that opium increases the cutaneous secretion, and lessens all the others.
3. It must however be noted, that after evacuations opium seems to promote the absorptions more than the secretions; if you except that of the sensorial power in the brain, which probably suffers no absorption. Hence its efficacy in restraining hæmorrhages, after the vessels are emptied, by promoting venous absorption.
4. In ulcers the matter is thickened by the exhibition of opium from the increased absorption of the thinner parts of it; but it is probable, that the whole secretion, including the part which is absorbed, is increased; and hence new fibres are secreted along with the matter, and the ulcer fills with new granulations of flesh. But as no ulcer can heal, till it ceases to discharge; that is, till the absorption becomes as great as the excretion; those medicines, which promote absorption only, are more advantageous for the healing an ulcer after it is filled with new flesh; as the Peruvian bark internally; with bandages and solutions of lead externally.
5. There are many pains which originate from a want of due motion in the part, as those occasioned by cold; and all those pains which are attended with cold extremities, and are generally termed nervous. These are relieved by whatever excites the part into its proper actions, and hence by opium and alcohol; which are the most universal stimulants we are acquainted with. In these cases the effect of opium is produced, as soon as the body becomes generally warm; and a degree of intoxication or sleep follows the cessation of the pain.
These nervous pains (as they are called) frequently return at certain periods of time, and are also frequently succeeded by convulsions; in these cases if opium removes the pain, the convulsions do not come on. For this purpose it is best to exhibit it gradually, as a grain every hour, or half hour, till it intoxicates. Here it must be noted, that a much less quantity will prevent the periods of these cold pains, than is necessary to relieve them after their access. As a grain and half of opium given an hour before the expected paroxysm will prevent the cold fit of an intermittent fever, but will not soon remove it, when it is already formed. For in the former case the usual or healthy associations or catenations of motion favour the effect of the medicine; in the latter case these associations or catenations are disordered, or interrupted, and new ones are formed, which so far counteract the effect of the medicine.
When opium has been required in large doses to ease or prevent convulsions, some have advised the patient to omit the use of wine, as a greater quantity of opium might then be exhibited; and as opium seems to increase absorption more, and secretion less, than vinous spirit; it may in some cases be useful to exchange one for the other; as in diseases attended with too great evacuation, as diarrhœa, and dysentery, opium may be preferable; on the contrary in tetanus, or locked-jaw, where inflammation of the system might be of service, wine may be preferable to opium; see ClassIII. 1. 1. 13. I have generally observed, that a mixture of spirit of wine and warm water, given alternately with the doses of opium, has soonest and most certainly produced that degree of intoxication, which was necessary to relieve the patient in the epilepsiadolorifica.
6. There is likewise some relief given by opium to inflammatory pains, or those from excess of motion in the affected part; but with this difference, that this relief from the pains, and the sleep, which it occasions, does not occur till some hours after the exhibition of the opium. This requires to be explained; after the stimulus of opium or of alcohol ceases, as after common drunkenness, a consequent torpor comes on; and the whole habit becomes less irritable by the natural stimuli. Hence the head-achs, sickness, and languor, on the next day after intoxication, with cold skin, and general debility. Now in pains from excess of motion, called inflammatory pains, when opium is given, the pain is not relieved, till the debility comes on after the stimulus ceases to act; for then after the greater stimulus of the opium has exhausted much of the sensorial power; the less stimulus, which before caused the pain, does not now excite the part into unnatural action.
In these cases the stimulus of the opium first increases the pain; and it sometimes happens, that so great a torpor follows, as to produce the death or mortification of the affected part; whence the danger of giving opium in inflammatory diseases, especially in inflammation of the bowels; but in general the pain returns with its former violence, when the torpor above mentioned ceases. Hence these pains attended with inflammation are best relieved by copious venesection, other evacuations, and the class of medicines called torpentia.
7. These pains from excess of motion are attended with increased heat of the whole, or of the affected part, and a strong quick pulse; the pains from defect of motion are attended with cold extremities, and a weak pulse; which is also generally more frequent than natural, but not always so.
8. Opium and alcohol are the only two drugs, we are much acquainted with, which intoxicate; and by this circumstance are easily distinguished from the secernentia and sorbentia. Camphor, and cicuta, and nicotiana, are thought to induce a kind of intoxication; and there are many other drugs of this class, whose effects are less known, or their doses not ascertained; as atropa belladonna, hyocyamus, stramonium, prunus laurocerasus, menispermum, cynoglossum, some fungi, and the water distilled from black cherry-stones; the last of which was once much in use for the convulsions of children, and was said to have good effect; but is now improvidently left out of our pharmacopias. I have known one leaf of the laurocerasus, shred and made into tea, given every morning for a week with no ill consequence to a weak hysteric lady, but rather perhaps with advantage.
9. The pernicious effects of a continued use of much vinous spirit is daily seen and lamented by physicians; not only early debility, like premature age, but a dreadful catalogue of diseases is induced by this kind of intemperance; as dropsy, gout, leprosy, epilepsy, insanity, as described in Botanic Garden, Part II. Canto III. line 357. The stronger or less diluted the spirit is taken, the sooner it seems to destroy, as in dram-drinkers; but still sooner, when kernels of apricots, or bitter almonds, or laurel-leaf, are infused in the spirit, which is termed ratafia; as then two poisons are swallowed at the same time. And vinegar, as it contains much vinous spirit, is probably a noxious part of our diet. And the distilled vinegar, which is commonly sold in the shops, is truly poisonous, as it is generally distilled by means of a pewter or leaden alembic-head or worm-tube, and abounds with lead; which any one may detect by mixing with it a solution of liver of sulphur. Opium, when taken as a luxury, not as a medicine, is as pernicious as alcohol; as Baron de Tott relates in his account of the opium-eaters in Turkey.
10. It must be observed, that a frequent repetition of the use of this class of medicines so habituates the body to their stimulus, that their dose may gradually be increased to an astonishing quantity, such as otherwise would instantly destroy life; as is frequently seen in those, who accustom themselves to the daily use of alcohol and opium; and it would seem, that these unfortunate people become diseased as soon as they omit their usual potations; and that the consequent gout, dropsy, palsy, or pimpled face, occur from the debility occasioned from the want of accustomed stimulus, or to some change in the contractile fibres, which requires the continuance or increase of it. Whence the cautions necessary to be observed are mentioned in Sect. XII. 7. 8.
11. It is probable, that some of the articles in the subsequent catalogue do not induce intoxication, though they have been esteemed to do so; as tobacco, hemlock, nux vomica, stavisagria; and on this account should rather belong to other arrangements, as to the secernentia, or sorbentia, or invertentia.
II.1. Externally the application of heat, as the warm bath, by its stimulus on the skin excites the excretory ducts of the perspirative glands, and the mouths of the lymphatics, which open on its surface, into greater action; and in consequence many other irritative motions, which are associated with them. To this increased action is added pleasurable sensation, which adds further activity to the system; and thus many kinds of pain receive relief from this additional atmosphere of heat.
The use of a warm bath of about 96 or 98 degrees of heat, for half an hour once a day for three or four months, I have known of great service to weak people, and is perhaps the least noxious of all unnatural stimuli; which however, like all other great excitement, may be carried to excess, as complained of by the ancients. The unmeaning application of the words relaxation and bracing to warm and cold baths has much prevented the use of this grateful stimulus; and the misuse of the term warm-bath, when applied to baths colder than the body, as to those of Buxton and Matlock, and to artificial baths of less than 90 degrees of heat, which ought to be termed cold ones, has contributed to mislead the unwary in their application.
The stimulus of wine, or spice, or salt, increases the heat of the system by increasing all or some of the secretions; and hence the strength is diminished afterwards by the loss of fluids, as well as by the increased action of the fibres. But the stimulus of the warm-bath supplies heat rather than produces it; and rather fills the system by increased absorption, than empties it by increased secretion; and may hence be employed with advantage in almost all cases of debility with cold extremities, perhaps even in anasarca, and at the approach of death in fevers. In these cases a bath much beneath 98 degrees, as of 80 or 85, might do injury, as being a cold-bath compared with the heat of the body, though such a bath is generally called a warm one.
The activity of the system thus produced by a bath of 98 degrees of heat, or upwards, does not seem to render the patients liable to take cold, when they come out of it; for the system is less inclined to become torpid than before, as the warmth thus acquired by communication, rather than by increased action, continues long without any consequent chillness. Which accords with the observation of Dr. Fordyce, mentioned in Sup. I.5. 1. who says, that those who are confined some time in an atmosphere of 120 or 130 degrees of heat, do not feel cold or look pale on coming into a temperature of 30 or 40 degrees; which would produce great paleness and sensation of coldness in those, who had been some time confined in an atmosphere of only 86 or 90 degrees of heat. Treatise on Simple Fever, p. 168.
Hence heat, where it can be confined on a torpid part along with moisture, as on a scrophulous tumour, will contribute to produce suppuration or resolution. This is done by applying a warm poultice, which should be frequently repeated; or a plaster of resin, wax, or fat; or by covering the part with oiled silk; both which last prevent the perspirable matter from escaping as well as the heat of the part, as these substances repel moisture, and are bad conductors of heat. Another great use of the stimulus of heat is by applying it to torpid ulcers, which are generally termed scrophulous or scorbutic, and are much easier inclined to heal, when covered with several folds of flannel.
Mr. —— had for many months been afflicted with an ulcer in perinæo, which communicated with the urethra, through which a part of his urine was daily evacuated with considerable pain; and was reduced to a great degree of debility. He used a hot-bath of 96 or 98 degrees of heat every day for half an hour during about six months. By this agreeable stimulus repeated thus at uniform times not only the ulcer healed, contrary to the expectation of his friends, but he acquired greater health and strength, than he had for some years previously experienced.
Mrs. —— was affected with transient pains, which were called nervous spasms, and with great fear of diseases, which she did not labour under, with cold extremities, and general debility. She used a hot-bath every other day of 96 degrees of heat for about four months, and recovered a good state of health, with greater strength and courage, than she had possessed for many months before.
Mr. Z. a gentleman about 65 years of age, who had lived rather intemperately in respect to vinous potation, and had for many years had annual visits of the gout, which now became irregular, and he appeared to be losing his strength, and beginning to feel the effects of age. He used a bath, as hot as was agreeable to his sensations, twice a week for about a year and half, and greatly recovered his health and strength with less frequent and less violent returns of regular gout, and is now near 80 years of age.
When Dr. Franklin, the American philosopher, was in England many years ago, I recommended to him the use of a warm-bath twice a week to prevent the too speedy access of old age, which he then thought that he felt the approach of, and I have been informed, that he continued the use of it till near his death, which was at an advanced age.
All these patients were advised not to keep themselves warmer than their usual habits, after they came out of the bath, whether they went into bed or not; as the design was not to promote perspiration, which weakens all constitutions, and seldom is of service to any. Thus a flannel shirt, particularly if it be worn in warm weather, occasions weakness by stimulating the skin by its points into too great action, and producing heat in consequence; and occasions emaciation by increasing the discharge of perspirable matter; and in both these respects differs from the effect of warm bathing, which communicates heat to the system at the same time that it stimulates it, and causes absorption more than exhalation.
2. The effect of the passage of an electric shock through a paralytic limb in causing it to contract, besides the late experiments of Galvani and Volta on frogs, intitle it to be classed amongst universal stimulants. Electric shocks frequently repeated daily for a week or two remove chronical pains, as the pleurodyne chronica, ClassI. 2. 4. 14. and other chronic pains, which are termed rheumatic, probably by promoting the absorption of some extravasated material. Scrophulous tumours are sometimes absorbed, and sometimes brought to suppurate by passing electric shocks through them daily for two or three weeks.