To avoid this dreadful disorder, people ought to use wholesome food; to take sufficient exercise in the open air; to be as easy and cheerful as possible; and carefully to guard against all blows, bruises, and every kind of pressure upon the breasts or other glandular parts[[160]].
CHAP. XLVI.
OF POISONS.
Every person ought, in some measure, to be acquainted with the nature and cure of poisons. They are generally taken unawares, and their effects are often so sudden and violent, as not to admit of delay, or allow time to procure the assistance of physicians. Happily indeed no great degree of medical knowledge is here necessary; the remedies for most poisons being generally at hand, or easily obtained, and nothing but common prudence needful in the application of them.
The vulgar notion, that every poison is cured by some counter-poison, as a specific, has done much hurt. People believe they can do nothing for the patient, unless they know the particular antidote to that kind of poison which he has taken. Whereas the cure of all poisons taken into the stomach, without exception, depends chiefly on discharging them as soon as possible.
There is no case wherein the indications of cure are more obvious. Poison is seldom long in the stomach before it occasions sickness, with an inclination to vomit. This shews plainly what ought to be done. Indeed common sense dictates to every one, that, if any thing has been taken into the stomach which endangers life, it ought immediately to be discharged. Were this duly regarded, the danger arising from poisons might generally be avoided. The method of prevention is obvious, and the means are in the hands of every one.
We shall not take up the reader’s time with a detail of the ridiculous notions which have prevailed among ignorant people in different ages with regard to poisons; neither shall we mention the boasted antidotes, which have been recommended either for preventing or obviating their effects; but shall content ourselves with pointing out the poisons most common in this country, and the means of avoiding their dangerous consequences.
Poisons either belong to the mineral, the vegetable, or the animal kingdom.
Mineral poisons are commonly of an acrid or corrosive quality; as arsenic, cobalt, the corrosive sublimate of mercury, &c.
Those of the vegetable kind are generally of a narcotic or stupefactive quality; as poppy, hemlock, henbane, berries of the deadly night-shade, &c.
Poisonous animals communicate their infection either by the bite or sting. This poison is very different from the former, and only produces its effects when received into the body by a wound.