1. Sea-voyages have cured consumptions; but it has been only when they have been so long, or so frequent, as to substitute the long continuance of gentle, to violent degrees of exercise of a shorter duration, or where they have been accompanied by some degree of the labour and care of navigating the ship.
2. A change of climate has often been prescribed for the cure of consumptions, but I do not recollect an instance of its having succeeded, except when it has been accompanied by exercise, as in travelling, or by some active laborious pursuit.
Doctor Gordon of Madeira, ascribes the inefficacy of the air of Madeira in the consumption, in part to the difficulty patients find of using exercise in carriages, or even on horseback, from the badness of the roads in that island.
3. Journies have often performed cures in the consumption, but it has been chiefly when they have been long, and accompanied by difficulties which have roused and invigorated the powers of the mind and body.
4. Vomits and NAUSEATING MEDICINES have been much celebrated for the cure of consumptions. These, by procuring a temporary determination to the surface of the body, so far lessen the pain and cough, as to enable patients to use profitable exercise. Where this has not accompanied or succeeded the exhibition of vomits, I believe they have seldom afforded any permanent relief.
5. Blood-letting has often relieved consumptions; but it has been only by removing the troublesome symptoms of inflammatory diathesis, and thereby enabling the patients to use exercise, or labour, with advantage.
6. Vegetable bitters and some of the STIMULATING GUMS have in some instances afforded relief in consumptions; but they have done so only in those cases where there was great debility, accompanied by a total absence of inflammatory diathesis. They have most probably acted by their tonic qualities, as substitutes for labour and exercise.
7. A Plentiful and REGULAR PERSPIRATION, excited by means of a flannel shirt, worn next to the skin, or by means of a stove-room, or by a warm climate, has in many instances prolonged life in consumptive habits; but all these remedies have acted as palliatives only, and thereby have enabled the consumptive patients to enjoy the more beneficial effects of exercise.
8. Blisters, SETONS, and ISSUES, by determining the perspirable matter from the lungs to the surface of the body, lessen pain and cough, and thereby prepare the system for the more salutary effects of exercise.
9. The effects of SWINGING upon the pulse and respiration, leave us no room to doubt of its being a tonic remedy, and therefore a safe and agreeable substitute for exercise.