Volume 2

Health lectures for the people.

Date:
1883-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    51/600 (page 39)
    sensory and motor paralysis will be produced. The two condi- tions which I have just mentioned (sudden plugging of a blood- vessel of the brain by a clot detached from the heart, and rupture of an artery in the brain,) are, in fact, the causes of the condition which you all know under the name of apoplexy. Disease of an artery only interferes with the supply of nourish- ment to a limited part of the body, but disease of the heart may interfere with the nutrition of the whole body. Secondly^ An over-supply of rations.—Over-eating is a common cause of derangement of the digestive functions and sometimes of disease. It must be remembered that anything over and above the quantity of nutriment which is required to replace the waste which is constantly going on in the body is not only unnecessary but is apt to do harm, and that in several ways. Every organ benefits by a certain amount of work, but if the exercise of its functions is excessive it becomes exhausted and is apt to become diseased. Over-work of the stomach or other parts of the diges- tive apparatus is a common cause of dyspepsia. Again, if too much food is supplied to the body, and more particularly if it is too rich in quality—but to this point I afterwards will more particularly allude—the blood becomes as it were over-saturated with nutri- tious materials, with the result that those organs which have to depurate or purify the blood are over-worked and are apt to become exhausted, irritated, and diseased. As a matter of fact we find that derangements of the liver and kidneys, gout, dyspep- sia, and other conditions, to which I need not particularly refer, are sometimes produced in this manner. Thirdly, Inappropriate rations.—Derangement and disease of the garrison might be produced by the fact that the raw material (or food) was not suitable for the manufacture of appropriate nutri- ment, or that some deleterious material was contained in the food. Both of these conditions, but more especially the latter, are frequent causes of actual disease. When, for instance, fresh vegetables, or some substitute for fresh vegetables, are omitted from the dietary, scurvy is apt to be produced. The outbreak of scurvy has been the cause of failure of many of our Arctic expedi-