MOTION IS A REMEDIAL AGENT.
The stability of the planetary system depends upon the converted motion of its parts. So in the human system, motion is a fundamental principle which underlies every vital process. Health consists in normal, functional activity. The human system is the arena of various kinds of motions, both of fluids and of solids, and life and health depend upon these physiological movements. There are the movements incident to respiration, the expansion and contraction of the walls of the chest, bringing the oxygen of the air into contact with the blood as it circulates through the lungs. Corresponding with the movements of the chest are the motions of the abdominal walls, which promote the functions of the organs of the abdominal cavity.
There are motions of the heart and arteries, which urge the blood out to the extremities and diffuse it through every part of the system, and also motion of the blood in the capillaries, by which the blood is circulated through the tissues, that the latter may be built up from its nutritive constituents. Then there is the motion of the vital current in the veins returning towards the heart, and urged forward by the muscular and pump-like action of the chest and abdominal walls. The peristaltic motions of the stomach and bowels urge onward digesting materials, exposing them successively to different solvents and aiding the absorption of nutritive matter. No less essential to life and health are numerous other minute operations or motions, on which vital power in all its manifestations of muscular and nervous energy depends. Many other motions are consequent upon decay, growth, and repair. Oxygen, carbonic acid, watery vapors, and other gaseous matter are constantly being exchanged between the system and atmosphere. Then, the human system being a complex, chemical laboratory, there are motions consequent upon chemical action, constantly going on within it.
Muscular motion, under the direction of the will, is also absolutely necessary for the maintenance of good health.
Animal heat and muscular and nervous power are dependent upon motions of the minutest particles composing the body. The body is composed of fluid and semi-fluid matter, permitting great freedom of motion. Health requires that there shall be a constant change of place, an active transmission of material to and from vital organs and parts, through the medium of blood-vessels, as well as outside such vessels; that is, motion of interstitial fluids.
Nature's mode of Sustaining Health. The act of transforming latent, non-vital force which exists pent-up in food, as heat is in coal, into vital energy, requires the simultaneous elimination from the system of a like amount of worn-out matter. Assimilation of nutritive materials is impossible, unless a like amount of matter be eliminated from the system. Muscular and nervous energy are dependent upon activities which cause waste. Not only is this true in a general way, but it is also true that the energy produced by the operations of the vital system has a strict relation to the wasting products—that full energy is only attained by perfected waste. Use, waste, and power, then, sustain definite and dependent or corresponding relations, since waste is as essential to health as is supply.
Without waste, disturbance is at once produced in the system similar to that resulting from the introduction of foreign matter. These disturbances constitute disease. The more obvious effects of lack of waste and elimination are mechanical. The circulation is loaded with effete and useless matter, the vessels being thereby weakened and distended, and the circulation retarded. The capillaries become clogged and vital action is diminished. Local congestions, inflammations, effusions, morbid growths, and other pathological results follow.
Deranged or suppressed action characterizes, and, indeed, constitutes all departures from health which we call disease. Suffering indicates action, but action which is perverted into wrong channels, or action in one part at the expense of motion in other parts, constituting a disturbance in the equilibrium of forces, from which the system suffers.
Value or Mechanical Movements and manipulations for the Treatment of Chronic Diseases. To correct and restore deranged movements, thereby producing normal, functional activity of every organ and part of the system, must therefore be the chief object of the physician. All remedies, of whatever school or nature, imply motion, and depend for their efficacy upon their ability to excite motion in some one or more elements, organs, or parts of the system.
While we do not wish to detract from the real merits of medicine as a curative agent, yet we must admit that the remedial power of motion, transmitted either manually or mechanically, is founded upon rational and physiological principles. All systems of medicine, however much they may differ superficially, propose, as the chief end to be attained by the administration of medicine, or by other treatment, that motions identical with physiological activity should be incited or promoted. How best to accomplish this result, and with least cost to vitality, is an important consideration. Bearing in mind the conservation of forces, that energy or power is as indestructible as matter, that it may be changed into other forms but never lost, it is plain that mechanical force may be applied to the living system and transformed into vital energy; that chemical action, animal heat, and magnetism may represent in the system the mechanical force transmitted to the body. Keeping in view the transformable nature of force, and the need that our systems have of auxiliary power in different departments, when normal activity is impaired by disease, we can readily understand how undoubted, curative effects result from either the manual or the mechanical administration of motion.
Rubbing is a process universally employed by physicians of every school for the relief of a great diversity of distressing symptoms, is instinctively resorted to by sympathizers and attendants upon the sick, and constitutes one of the chief duties of the nurse. Uncivilized people resort to this process as their principal remedy in all forms of disease.
The difficulty in administering motion as a remedial agent by manual effort, such as rubbing, kneading, oscillating, flexing, and extending the limbs, lies in the impossibility of supplying the amount, intensity, and variety of movement required to make it most effective. The power of the arm and the strength of the operator are exhausted before the desired effect is produced. Inventive genius has at last overcome the obstacles to the successful and perfect administration of motion as a curative agent. We have now a series of machines propelled by mechanical power, by the use of which we rub, knead, manipulate, and apply in succession a great variety of movements to all parts of the body. These machines transmit motion to the body from inexhaustible sources, never tire, but are ever ready for new, remedial conquests. The movements administered by their use, while entirely under the control of the patient, are never disagreeable, and are far more rapid and intense than can possibly be given by the hands. By the application of short, quick movements of from twelve to fifteen hundred vibrations a minute, deep-seated organs and parts are reached, to which motion is transmitted and in which vital energy is thereby generated. The hands have not the power, by kneading, manipulating, or rubbing to impress the system except in a very mild degree, and deep-seated organs and parts are scarcely influenced by the comparatively slow movements thus administered. Among the most important, mechanical inventions devised for administering motion as a remedial agent, is one which has received the name of the manipulator.
The Manipulator. With this machine motion can be applied to any organ or part of the system, and intensity of the application regulated to a nicety. The rapidity of motion necessary to produce active exhilaration of any part of the body is easily secured by the use of the manipulator, but is far beyond the power of the hands. The degree of circulation given to the fluids, both inside and outside of the vessels, and of energy imparted to the organs and parts operated upon by the manipulator, is also unapproachable by the application of manual power.
Effects Upon the Circulation and Nutrition. The influence of motion on these functions is as follows: The contents of the blood-vessels are moved onward by the pressure and motion transmitted by the manipulator, all backward movement of the blood being prevented by the valves of the veins and by the propelling power of the heart and arteries. Fluids outside these vessels pass through their walls, to take the place of the stagnant blood that has been moved onward. Other blood flows into the part, and thus active and healthy circulation is induced, and nutritive material, capable of affording vital support is also brought to refresh the local part.
We have found mechanical movements especially effectual in paralysis, neuralgia, sleeplessness, and other nervous affections; in derangements of the liver, constipation, and dyspepsia; in displacements of the uterus, and congestion, and inflammation of the pelvic organs.
For a complete description of the mechanical movements and the machinery employed in the treatment of diseases at the Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute, the reader is referred to the appendix to this work.