[7] The temperature and vitality of our bodies depend upon the continued and rapid combination of oxygen with the oxidizable products of the blood; if the necessary supply of oxygen be interfered with, the vitality of the system flags, and disease results. [↑]
[8] The very name of scrofula points to the origin of the disease, it being derived from the Latin Scrofa, a pig (quod sues præcipue hoc morbo vexantur. Cels. 5, 38), in allusion to the condition of the skin in those persons in whom a scrofulous habit has been engendered. It has been proved beyond contradiction that the partial closure of the pores, which every one suffers from in some degree, is the chief source of scrofula in all its hideous forms. [↑]
[9] When blood is overloaded with carbon, and deprived of its necessary supply of oxygen, the term “veinous” is applied to it. [↑]
[10] Where consumption has been relieved by residence abroad, the benefit derived must be attributed to the action on the skin produced by the hot climates to which the patient is usually ordered, but recovery in this way has been confined to very mild forms of the disease, and cannot be looked upon as a scientific mode of treatment; the improved action of the skin deserving to be considered rather as induced accidentally than by design; as otherwise more attention would have been paid to so important a matter, and there would have been no necessity for ordering the patient abroad, as similar results could have been obtained much more easily and effectually by keeping him at home; the use of the Turkish bath conferring all the benefits of increased temperature, followed by the tonic effects of cool air and water, by which the debilitating effects of continual residence in a warm climate are obviated. [↑]
[11] Dr. Hufeland remarks—“The more active and open the skin is the more secure will the people be against obstructions and diseases of the lungs, intestines, and lower stomach; and the less tendency will they have to gastric (bilious) fevers, hypochondriasis, gout, asthma, catarrh, and varicose veins.” [↑]
[12] The wearing of flannel close to the skin has a two-fold injurious effect:—First, by driving the blood from the surface, whereby the activity of the skin is seriously impaired; and secondly, by shutting out the air, and so preventing it from having access to the blood, to aerate and purify it. [↑]
[13] By healthy waste, we mean waste accompanied by corresponding renewal. [↑]
[14] We have seen consumptive patients arrive at Blarney shivering with cold though swathed in flannels, who before leaving it were able to wear clothing in winter, under which they previously would have shivered in the hottest day of summer. [↑]
[15] The great mortality which has attended the Allopathic treatment of cholera, ought to make us have little compunction in trying something new. There is no fear, in this case, of our “jumping from the frying-pan into the fire;” we are already in it—let us quench it. [↑]
[16] Dr. Russell, a well-known Homœopathic author, appears to give the palm to Hydropathy in some rheumatic cases. He thus writes: “In regard to rheumatism, I am inclined to think that there are some varieties of this complaint which utterly defy all Homœopathic medicines, from the deeply morbid condition of the blood; and that in these cases a thorough water course, by effecting a rapid and total renovation of this fluid, might enable our remedies to act more beneficially.” Contrast this liberality with that of the Allopathic physician. [↑]