But excessive exertion, either of the mind or body, should be avoided, and an interest fostered in the wonders and beauties of nature-the garden, the farm, the mountain-side and the river. 5. Healthy residence.- The position of the house, the prevailing winds, the aspect of the room (of the bedroom especially), the windows, the position of the bed, and the provision for ventilation, should be considered. The climate should be moderately warm, dry, and uniform to suit the consumptive. A voyage under favourable conditions sometimes wonderfully renews the constitution, if the patient does not suffer from sea-sickness. A patient, too, should be able to command every comfort in a long voyage, and to spend most of his time on deck. There is splendid accommodation now offered by the leading shipping lines, such as the Orient and P and O. Companies, but where patients can stand a longer voyage we should prefer a sailing ship. The climate of, and voyage to, South Australia is often suitable. Facts have been adduced which prove that Phthisis prevails very extensively in Australia, among those following occupations liable to be so affected, and that in rapidity of course, and in fatality, it rivals the same disease at home. It is only an out-of-door life in the pure air, and under the clear sky, with a favourable temperature and the absence of humidity, that is likely to benefit a youth in the incipient stage of Phthisis, who leaves our shores to rough it in Australia. Among continental places of residence for the consumptive, Davos Platz, and other places in Switzerland, possess a high reputation. When removal to a foreign country is impracticable, Torquay, Undercliffe in the Isle of Wight, Hastings, Bournemouth, Worthing, and Queenstown (Ireland), are places in our own isles to which consumptive patients may resort with great benefit.
On the whole, it is desirable for a patient to endeavour to cure himself in the country in which he has to live. Cases will often rapidly improve in dry Swiss mountain air, and relapse on returning to our moister English atmosphere, whereas had an English sanatorium been sought at first, progress, though slower, might have proved more permanent. the open-air treatment in sanatoria has done a great deal for many cases of tuberculosis. The constant supervision, graduated exercise, and extra feeding and the abundance of air and sunlight are of incalculable value in early cases, and even some advanced cases benefit remarkably. Tuberculin or other drug treatment can be combined with routine sanatorium treatment.
PREVENTIVE TREATMENT. (At a meeting held at marlborough House on December 20, 1898. Sir W. Broadbent, Chairman of the National Association for the Prevention of Consumption, emphasized the importance of educating the public as to the means of preventing the spread of the disease, and of providing sanatoria for its open-air treatment.) There is an antecedent condition of tubercular Phthisis in which treatment is most hopeful, which is characterized by Indigestion, furred tongue, failing appetite, dislike to fatty kinds of food, pallor, and loss of strength. This, the antecedent stage, is the most important for treatment; and that treatment includes the prescription of remedies, fresh air, and healthy occupation for improving the nutrition of the patient. In short, the early adoption of all those general measures which have just been pointed out.
In conclusion, all excesses must be avoided, whether in wine, the pleasures of the table, exercise, or in the gratification of any passion which over-stimulates the mind or the body. Business and intellectual pursuits should not be followed to the extent of inducing mental or bodily fatigue, but should be laid aside as early in the day as possible, and while there is sufficient strength remaining to permit the patient to engage in healthy exercise.
66. – Tabes Mesenterica – Consumption of the Bowels.
DEFINITION. – A growth of tubercle in the mesenteric glands, which undergoes changes similar to those in the lungs. It may be associated with tubercular ulceration of the bowel and tubercular Peritonitis. It may cause death through wasting and gradual exhaustion. The condition in infants known as marasmus, when nutrition fails and the patient becomes more and more emaciated may be due to tubercle, but it is a name for a condition, and not for a disease.
SYMPTOMS. – Swollen and tense abdomen; irregular action, or, more generally, relaxation of the bowels, with unhealthy, foetid stools; passage of undigested food; pain in the bowels, so that the patient draws his legs up towards the abdomen; at the same time he is feverish and indisposed to activity. There is also pale and flabby skin; anxious and aged expression; inordinate or fitful appetite. The process of absorption becomes suspended, so that the quantity of nutriment added to the blood is inadequate to the requirements of the system; Hectic fever sets in, with obstinate diarrhoea, extreme thirst, restlessness, and sleeplessness; the body wastes until the degree of emaciation becomes extreme, hence the term tabes (to melt away) and the patient dies, in most cases, from actual starvation. If, however, treatment is resorted to before the disease has advanced too far, the patient slowly recovers. When Peritonitis occurs, there may be accumulation of fluid in the abdomen, often purulent. An operation may be required to deal with this.
TREATMENT. – The remedies required in the affection are especially Iodium, ARs., Calcarea carb., and Sulph. Where there is obstinate constipation Plumb. acet. 3 trit., 2 or 3 grain doses three times a day, has cured many cases.
The best hope of cure is in early and judicious treatment; the disease, however, is so serious that it should only be confided to a homoeopathic practitioner.
ACCESSORY MEANS. – The food should be nourishing and simple, – fresh meat, goat’s milk, beef tea, soda-water or lime-water with milk and cod-liver oil. Warm clothing, including a flannel bandage around the abdomen, to guard against the vicissitudes of the weather.
For Tubercular Meningitis, see Diseases of the Nervous System.
67. – Diabetes – Diabetes Mellitus.
DEFINITION. – A constitutional disease, characterized by an excessive discharge of pale, sweet and heavy urine, containing grape-sugar.
SYMPTOMS. – Malaise, excessive debility, and progressive emaciation; red and fissured tongue, enlarged papillae circumvallatae, intense thirst, frequent micturition; voracious appetite, and sinking at the stomach, the bowels are usually costive, and the evacuations dry and hard; the skin is harsh and dry; and the breath has sometimes a peculiar smell like chloroform. Boils, or carbuncles, swelling of the legs, etc., may accompany the disease. In advanced stages, some form of lung Inflammation, or Phthisis, is not an infrequent complication. The insatiable thirst, uninterruptedly torturing the patient, is a highly characteristic symptom. The temperature is almost uniformly below the normal, rarely exceeding 97 degree Fahr., and sometimes being as low as 94 degree or 95 degree. These are the symptoms of true Diabetes Mellitus, a disease which is all but incurable and fatal. But there are conditions when sugar is passed, often in quantity, for years without apparently serious effect on the health. These conditions generally occur in later life. In all forms of glycosuria, dieting (see below) will diminish the amount of sugar. In the less serious conditions it may relieve all serious symptoms or even cure the patient. In the grave cases, however, it only defers an almost inevitable end. The symptoms;of all kinds of glycosuria and similar, though naturally they are more marked in the graver cases. These last generally end in coma, which is associated with the presence of acetone in the urine.
The quantity of urine is generally in great excess, amounting to from eight to twenty or even thirty pints daily, inducing frequent calls to micturate day and night, and producing soreness and Inflammation of the urethra. Thirty pints of urine of the specific gravity of 1.040, which is about the heaviest, contains nearly four pounds of sugar. In a few months patients often pass a quantity of sugar equal in weight to that of their own bodies.
DIABETES TEST.- Diabetic urine is of a pale straw-colour, has a faint smell of apple, hay, or milk, is of high specific gravity (1.025 to 1.050), and is passed in large quantities. When there are excessive discharges of urine, especially if associated with the above symptoms, an examination of the urine should be made. There are various tests for diabetic sugar, but the one most readily practised is Trommer;s and is as follows- Half fill a test-tube with the urine to be examined, and add about two drops of a solutions of sulphate of copper to make it slightly blue, and then excess to liquor potassae enough to clear it, by re- dissolving the precipitate which it at first produces. Let it boil up once over a flame and if there be sugar, there will appear a reddish-brown precipitate of the sub-oxide of copper; but if there be no sugar, a precipitate of black oxide of copper.
LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS; MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS; LICENTIATE IN MIDWIFERY, LONDON AND EDINBURGH, ETC. PHYSICIAN TO THE READING AND BERKSHIRE HOMOEOPATHIC DISPENSARY.
Author of "The Stepping Stone to Homeopathy and Health,"
"Manual of Homoeopathic Treatment". Editor of "The Homoeopathic World."