It is the stimulus imparted by the thrice daily ingestion of so many unnatural and indigestible articles that compose the mixed diet, which prevents so many from resting when they are tired. With others, however, the effect is quite the reverse: some are always complaining of a “tired feeling.” There is a genuine lack of vital force occasioned by lack of nourishment. When this feeling is experienced on rising, it is usually, almost invariably, at least in part, the effect of close sleeping-rooms. Many persons,—some who are fat, and called healthy, others, perhaps, lean,—are called “lazy” who are positively weak, too weak to work without great effort such as lookers-on know nothing about, although most people may have had similar feelings occasionally—the “after-dinner laziness.” This special form of disease has previously been spoken of. (See p. [34]).
Nutrition is the grand factor in the prevention or cure of disease. It may be said, truly enough, that the blood-aerating capacity remains throughout equal, often superior, to the blood-making capacity; and consumption may be appropriately described as dyspeptic starvation. (See “Saline Starvation.”) In those instances where the capital stock (of vitality) is exhausted the victims of this disease must die; but thousands of cases pronounced after a long course
of medication and stimulation, hopeless, have been restored by a simple diet and an out-door life. Even hygienic institutes have failed to apply this principle in its entirety when brought face to face with cases that demanded “heroic treatment;” influenced in some measure, possibly, by the popular distrust of their methods, especially the deep prejudice against a restricted diet—now, however, rapidly disappearing—they have hitherto erred continually on the side of excess. Nevertheless, they restore to health, or greatly benefit, ninety per cent. of the broken down invalids who come to them, usually, as a last resort.
I desire here to note particularly the change now going on in the minds of the most eminent and practical physicians in this and European countries, concerning the use of beef-tea. It is found by chemical analysis to be almost identical with “chamber-lye”—the favorite prescription of our grandmothers—and although more agreeable to the taste than urine, even when the latter is drowned in treacle, it is, in my opinion, always injurious, especially in sickness, when, of course, the excretory system is already taxed to the utmost. Most people, even in health, have more than they can well do to excrete their own, once, without swallowing any portion of the waste of animals!
Says Dr. Brunton:
“We find only too frequently that both doctors and patients think that the strength is sure to be kept up if a sufficient quantity of beef-tea can only be got down; but I think it a question whether beef-tea
may not very frequently (?) be actually injurious, and whether the products of muscular waste which constitute the chief portion of beef-tea, beef-essence, or even the beef itself, may not, under certain circumstances, be actually poisonous.”
“In many cases of nervous depression we find a feeling of weakness and prostration coming on during digestion, and becoming so very marked about the second hour after a meal has been taken, and at the very time when absorption is going on, that we can hardly do otherwise than ascribe it to actual poisoning by digestive products absorbed into the circulation. From the observation of a number of cases, I came to the conclusion that the languor and faintness of which many patients complained, and which occurred about eleven and four o’clock, was due to actual poisoning by the products of digestion of breakfast and lunch; but at the time when I arrived at this conclusion I had no experimental data to show that the products of digestion were actually poisonous in themselves; and only within the last few months have I seen the conclusions to which I had arrived by clinical observation, confirmed by experiments made in the laboratory. Such experiments have been made by Professor Albertoni, of Genoa, and by Dr. Schmidt-Mühlheim, in Professor Ludwig’s laboratory at Leipsic.”
“Professor Albertoni and Dr. Schmidt-Mühlheim independently made the discovery that peptones prevented the coagulation of the blood in dogs, and the latter, under Ludwig’s direction, has also investigated
their action upon the circulation. He finds that, when injected into a vein, they greatly depress the circulation, so that the blood-pressure falls very considerably; and when the quantity injected is large, they produce a soporose condition, complete arrest of the secretion by the kidneys,[20] convulsions, and death. From these experiments it is evident that the normal products of digestion are poisons of no inconsiderable power, and that if they reach the general circulation in large quantities they may produce very alarming, if not dangerous symptoms.”