Advice to the people in general, with regard to their health

by S. A. D. Tissot

§ 20. They are also further injured by the Quality, as well as the Quantity, of their Food. They are forced to sup strong Gravey Soups, Eggs, Biscuits, and even Flesh, if they have but just Strength and Resolution to chew it. It seems absolutely impossible for them to survive all this Trash. Should a Man in perfect Health be compelled to eat stinking Meat, rotten Eggs, stale sour Broth, he is attacked with as violent Symptoms, as if he had taken real Poison, which, in Effect, he has. He is seized with Vomiting, Anguish, a violent Purging, and a Fever, with Raving, and eruptive Spots, which we call the Purple Fever. Now when the very same Articles of Food, in their soundest State, are given to a Person in a Fever, the Heat, and the morbid Matter already in his Stomach, quickly putrify them; and after a few Hours produce all the abovementioned Effects. Let any Man judge then, if the least Service can be expected from them.

§ 21. It is a Truth established by the first of Physicians, above two thousand Years past, and still further ratified by his Successors, that as long as a sick Person has a bad Humour or Ferment in his Stomach, his Weakness increases, in Proportion to the Food he receives. For this being corrupted by the infected Matter it meets there, proves incapable of nourishing, and becomes a conjunct or additional Cause of the Distemper.

The most observing Persons constantly remark, that whenever a feverish Patient sups, what is commonly called some good Broth, the Fever gathers Strength and the Patient Weakness. The giving such a Soup or Broth, though of the freshest soundest Meat, to a Man who has a high Fever, or putrid Humours in his Stomach, is to do him exactly the same service, as if you had given him, two or three Hours later, stale putrid Soup.

§ 22. I must also affirm, that this fatal Prejudice, of keeping up the Patients' Strength by Food, is still too much propagated, even among those very Persons, whose Talents and whose Education might be expected to exempt them from any such gross Error. It were happy for Mankind, and the Duration of their Lives would generally be more extended, if they could be thoroughly persuaded of this medical, and so very demonstrable, Truth;—That the only things which can strengthen sick Persons are those, which are able to weaken their Disease; but their Obstinacy in this Respect is inconceivable: it is another Evil superadded to that of the Disease, and sometimes the more grievous one. Out of twenty sick Persons, who are lost in the Country, more than two Thirds might often have been cured, if being only lodged in a Place defended from the Injuries of the Air, they were supplied with Abundance of good Water. But that most mistaken Care and Regimen I have been treating of, scarcely suffers one of the twenty to survive them.

§ 23. What further increases our Horror at this enormous Propensity to heat, dry up, and cram the sick is, that it is totally opposite to what Nature herself indicates in such Circumstances. The burning Heat of which they complain; the Dryness of the Lips, Tongue and Throat; the flaming high Colour of their Urine; the great Longing they have for cooling things; the Pleasure and sensible Benefit they enjoy from fresh Air, are so many Signs, or rather Proofs, which cry out with a loud Voice, that we ought to attemperate and cool them moderately, by all means. Their foul Tongues, which shew the Stomach to be in the like Condition; their Loathing, their Propensity to vomit, their utter Aversion to all solid Food, and especially to Flesh; the disagreeable Stench of their Breath; their Discharge of fetid Wind upwards and downwards, and frequently the extraordinary Offensiveness of their Excrements, demonstrate, that their Bowels are full of putrid Contents, which must corrupt all the Aliments superadded to them; and that the only thing, which can prudently be done, is to dilute and attemper them by plentiful Draughts of refreshing cooling Drinks, which may promote an easy Discharge of them. I affirm it again, and I heartily wish it may be thoroughly attended to, that as long as there is any Taste of Bitterness, or of Putrescence; as long as there is a Nausea or Loathing, a bad Breath, Heat and Feverishness with fetid Stools, and little and high-coloured Urine; so long all flesh, and Flesh-Soup, Eggs, and all kind of Food composed of them, or of any of them, and all Venice Treacle, Wine, and all heating things are so many absolute Poisons.

§ 24. I may possibly be censured as extravagant and excessive on these Heads by the Publick, and even by some Physicians: but the true and enlightened Physicians, those who attend to the Effects of every Particular, will find on the contrary, that far from exceeding in this Respect, I have rather feebly expressed their own Judgment, in which they agree with that of all the good ones, who have existed within more than two thousand Years; that very Judgment which Reason approves, and continual Experience confirms. The Prejudices I have been contending against have cost Europe some Millions of Lives.

§ 25. Neither should it be omitted, that even when a Patient has very fortunately escaped Death, notwithstanding all this Care to obtain it, the Mischief is not ended; the Consequences of the high Aliments and heating Medicines being, to leave behind the Seed, the Principle, of some low and chronical Disease; which increasing insensibly, bursts out at length, and finally procures him the Death he has even wished for, to put an End to his tedious Sufferings.

§ 26. I must also take Notice of another dangerous common Practice; which is that of purging, or vomiting a Patient, at the very Beginning of a Distemper. Infinite Mischiefs are occasioned by it. There are some Cases indeed, in which evacuating Medicines, at the Beginning of a Disease, are convenient and even necessary. Such Cases shall be particularly mentioned in some other Chapters: but as long as we are unacquainted with them, it should be considered as a general Rule, that they are hurtful at the Beginning; this being true very often; and always, when the Diseases are strictly inflammatory.

§ 27. It is hoped by their Assistance, at that Time, to remove the Load and Oppression of the Stomach, the Cause of a Disposition to vomit, of a dry Mouth, of Thirst, and of much Uneasiness; and to lessen the Leaven or Ferment of the Fever. But in this Hope they are very often deceived; since the Causes of these Symptoms are seldom of a Nature to yield to these Evacuations. By the extraordinary Viscidity or Thickness of the Humours, that foul the Tongue, we should form our Notions of those, which line the Stomach and the Bowels. It may be washed, gargled and even scraped to very little good Purpose. It does not happen, until the Patient has drank for many Days, and the Heat, the Fever and the great Siziness of the Humours are abated, that this Filth can he thoroughly removed, which by Degrees separates of itself. The State of the Stomach being conformable to that of the Tongue, no Method can effectually scour and clean it at the Beginning: but by giving refreshing and diluting Remedies plentifully, it gradually frees itself; and the Propensity to vomit, with its other Effects and Uneasinesses, go off naturally, and without Purges.

§ 28. Neither are these Evacuations only negatively wrong, merely from doing no Good; for considerable Evil positively ensues from the Application of those acrid irritating Medicines, which increase the Pain and Inflammation; drawing the Humours upon those Parts that were already overloaded with them; which by no means expel the Cause of the Disease, that not being at this time fitted for Expulsion, as not sufficiently concocted or ripe: and yet which, at the same Time, discharge the thinnest Part of the Blood, whence the Remainder becomes more thick; in short which carry off the useful, and leave the hurtful Humours behind.