Our home physician: a new and popular guide to the art of preserving health and treating disease; with plain advice for all the medical and surgical emergencies of the family

Front matter

Glass.

Book.

TttV j$6f

Preface

The objects of this book are :

1. To prevent disease, by presenting in a popular form information concerning the laws of health.

2. To shorten disease, by enforcing the necessity and the duty of taking bad symptoms in time, and stopping the beginnings of evil.

3. To diminish the evil and fatal effects of disease, by giving plain advice for all the medical and surgical emergencies of the family, and simple rules for arresting and controlling disease for those who are beyond the ready call of a physician. Its purpose, therefore, is not so much to enable its readers to dispense with a physician, as to teach them how to dispense with disease.

4. To give popular information concerning the progress of medical science, by briefly describing and illustrating the recent inventions, discoveries, and improvements by means of which physicians are now enabled to study and to treat disease so much more satisfactorily and successfully than in former times. Although many of the instruments and appliances that are represented cannot, of course, be used by my readers, and may indeed never be seen- by them, yet a general knowledge of their nature and uses cannot fail to be both interesting and valuable to the afflicted of every class, and should have the effect to convince the most sceptical that a profession which has done so much and so nobly for humanity is worthy of the highest respect and most fervent gratitude.

What is here said concerning the structure of the human body and the functions of its organs ; on diet, stimulants, narcotics, air, sunlight, exercise, bathing ; on the care of the sick-room, the management of infants and children ; on the general laws and history of disease; and on the treatment of accidents and emergencies, and descriptions of familiar remedies, — is designed for all persons and for every household.

What is here said concerning the special care and treatment of obscure and grave diseases, and the application of powerful remedies, is designed chiefly for those who, like planters, miners, sailors, travellers, and dwellers in remote districts and on the plains,

IV PREFACE.

are beyond the reach of skilful medical aid, and must either be treated by themselves or by their friends, or left to suffer, and perhaps to die.

The work, as now arranged, not only includes all that has ever been attempted in similar works, but also several hundred new siO~ jects in the department of health that have never before been mentimed in any or all of the popidar treatises on m.edical science that have yet appeared.. I have sought to mention and describe every recent medical discovery and improvement that can possibly be of any service to my readers. I have endeavored throughout the work to keep in mind that I was writing for the great masses of the people, who know little or nothing of medical language. Therefore I have aimed to make the descriptions brief, clear, and elementary. There are many methods of studying disease, many hard terms which would only bewilder the general reader, though they are very familiar to physicians. Of such I make no mention.

My aim has also been to make the work so clear that the wayfaring man might not err therein, and yet so thorough and exhaustive that the educated physician should find in it much to perfect his knowledge and refresh his memory.

It will be seen that the types, phases, and names of diseases have changed wonderfully during the past twenty-five years. We now have less of fevers and inflammation, and more of dyspepsia, neuralgia, hysteria, hypochondria, and other forms of nervous disease.

In our method of treatment, a greater revolution has been wrought than in the types of disease. Instead of bleeding and calomel, tartar-emetic and low diet, we now give tonics mid stimulants — iron and quinine, strychnine and arsenic, cod-liver oil and whiskey, air and sunlight, passive movements, general electrization, abundance of sleep, and a large and palatable variety of nourishing food.

The result of all this scientific progress is, that we are much more successful in the treatment of diseases than formerly. Consumption is now much oftener held in check, relieved, and cured than it was twenty-five years ago. Statistics now show that it is much less frequently fatal under the new system of treatment than under the old. Catarrh of the nose and larynx (rhinitis, pharyngitis, and laryngitis), dyspepsia, neuralgia, hysteria, hypochondria, insanity, the special diseases of xoomen, affections of the eye, the ear, and the skin — all of which were until recently ignored and neglected by the profession — are now treated with signal success. Among the new remedies and methods of treatment that have been found most

PREFACE. 7

successful, I may here mention bromide of potassium, carbolic acid, t7ie sulphites and hypophosphites of soda, pepsin, cod-liver oil, strychnine, Swedish movements, general and localized electrization, podophyllin, pyrophosphate of iron, veratrum viride, nitrous oxide, oxygen, phosphorus, glycerine, chlorate of potash.

' This work is intended to be a compend of the whole of the popular medical science of our time, so far as it can be interesting or useful to my readers. Under Anatomy I have presented those general facts in regard to the structure of the body, that every one, young and old, should be acquainted with. Under Physiology I have introduced many recent experiments and researches in this most fascinating branch of science. Under Hygiene I have given in detail important rules for the care of the health and the art of prolonging life. This is a subject to which I have devoted my life, and one to which I call the special attention of my readers. The large portion of the book devoted to the care of the health will be found to contain new, reliable, and interesting facts, many of which have never before been published. The facts and views that I present on the subject of Food, Stimidants and Narcotics, Exercise, Sleep, Laws of Inheritance, Influence of Occupation on Health and Longevity, Man compared with other Animals, certain of the nervous diseases, will probably take most of my readers by surprise. This surprise will be all the greater because the people have usually obtained their instruction on these matters from bad or ignorant men, who knew nothing whatever of science. I have tried also to present this department of hygiene in a somewhat attractive and interesting style, so that every one into whose hands the book may fall will read them first, even though all other sections are neglected.

In speaking of the various Accidents, Diseases, and Remedies, I have aimed to be brief, clear, direct, and explicit ; to introduce nothing that would mislead, to omit nothing that can be of practical service to any one. I have tried to draw the lines beyond which patients should never attempt to cross. I have pointed out those conditions in which patients should never allow themselves to be treated by themselves or their friends, and should consult the best medical advice or none at all.

It will be seen that a large number of diseases which the masses of the people suppose to be incurable are now, under our modern systems of treatment and in skilful hands, susceptible of relief and of cure. All over the land there are thousands of cases of cataract that a skilful oculist might operate on with success ; thousands of cases of deafness which, if taken in time, might be wholly or partially cured ; thousands of cases of dyspepsia, neuralgia, paralysis,

VI PREFACE.

and Dther nameless forms of chronic nervous diseases, that, if they only knew where to go, without falling into the hands of the philistines, might be permanently relieved. All about us there are aching heads, weary nerves, that cry bitterly for relief and know not where to find it. This knowledge of the best way to consult a physician, and the best means of treatment, especially for diseases that have been regarded as incurable, I endeavor here to supply.

There are yet among the people those who have a blind faith in some one school or exclusive system of treatment. To all such, let me say that the wise physician of oar time uses for his patients all things that have been proved to be beneficial. On this principle this work is based. The best physicians of our day are not narrow or bigoted, as some suppose, bat are on the whole more liberal and progressive than almost any- other class in society.

I undertake the enterprise with a full appreciation of the responsibilities of my position as a pioneer. Accordingly, I have left no stone unturned to make the work fully represent the best and most recent opinions and experience of the leading authorities of our time in the various departments.

This book, as now completed, is the work of so many hands, that I might perhaps be more properly called its editor than its author. Of the "Domestic Medicine" prepared by Imray and other able writers, on which the work is based, I have taken of the general descriptions, especially in the department of Anatomy, such portions as in their very nature cannot be very progressive, and are therefore of permanent application.

I have been assisted in the department of the Eye and Ear, by Prof. D. B. St. John Roosa ; in Surgical Accidents and Emergencies, by Prof. Benjamin Howard ; in Obstetrics and the Hygiene of Infancy, by Dr. James B. Hunter. In the general revision of the work and correction of the proofs I have received indispensable assistance from my professional associate, Dr. A. D. Rockwell.

In collecting Vital Statistics I have at various times received invaluable suggestions from those eminent hygienists, Dr. Edward Jarvis and Dr. Elisha Harris, Registrar of Vital Statistics of the New York Metropolitan Board of Health.

In the sanitary department I have had the benefit of the experience of the well-known sanitarian, Dr. John H. Griscom.

To each and all of these gentlemen I desire to express my warmest acknowledgments, not alone for special assistance, but for general encouragement in my labors.

I have quoted extensively from my translation of ToboWs Chronic Diseases of the Larynx, from my works on The Brain and

PREFACE. V1J

Brain-'Wor'kers, and Hygiene for Students, both of which are now being prepared for early publication ; and also from a work on General and Localized Electrization, by Dr. A. D. Bockwell and myself, which is now in press. To Messrs. Tiemann & Co. my thanks are due for courtesy and promptness in furnishing a number of the cuts of instruments with which the work is illustrated.

I have consulted and freely quoted the standard works in the special departments of medical science that have appeared during the last few years. A partial list of the more prominent of these writers, with the titles of their books, will be found under a separate heading.

The task which I have here undertaken is one of unusual difficulty and delicacy. To prepare a comprehensive popular treatise on the recondite science of medicine that shall say just enough to instruct, and not so much as to bewilder ; that shall fairly represent the various departments in language both clear and attractive, as well as accurate and instructive ; that shall make broad and plain the boundaries between those subjects which the people can and should know, and those which they should not attempt to know ; that shall treat all this large variety of themes in such manner as not to offend the taste of the best-ordered household, — this is probably the ■ severest test to which a scientific writer can possibly be brought.

In the absence of any respectable model, I have been compelled to proceed without guide or precedent, and to create my own ideal. Accordingly, it has been my aim to write here in the pages of this book just what I say every day in my office to my patients; just what I have been accustomed to teach in my popular essays and in my lectures before schools and lyceums.

I say just what the family physician would tell his patients if he had the time and strength to give instruction in science to the families under his charge.

New York, August, 1869. G-. M. B,

Introduction

KEASONS WHY ALL PEOPLE SHOULD HATE SOME GENERAL KNOWLEDGE OF MEDICAL SCIENCE.

It is one of the most cheering signs of our times that science is being diffused among the masses of the people.

On every hand we see evidences of an increasing love for scientific truth, even among those classes who formerly had no love for knowledge of any kind. Works on familiar science are now read with considerable eagerness ; and the certain prospect is, that in a few years they will command a much wider circle of readers than they do at the present time.

The people are beginning to learn that science is for them and not for the few, and are now informing themselves of some of the general principles and facts of astronomy, of geology, and of chemistry ; and our periodical literature is helping on the good work, oftentimes unconsciously. It is hard to find any prominent and popular newspaper or magazine that does not now and then present some interesting and valuable scientific facts and theories; and there are quite a number of journals which regularly devote a certain space to popular science in all its branches — chemistry, astronomy, geology, and medicine.

Nor is this all. Quite recently a journal has been established, one of the professed objects of which is to disseminate popular science among those classes who are the most eager readers of fiction.

These signs of the times are, I say, full of cheer. They give promise of a more generous culture, larger views, and more kindly tolerance in the future, among all ranks of society ; for the tendency of scientific knowledge is always to liberalize.

The one great cause of the prevailing (but happily diminishing) narrowness in our current theologies, systems of education, and social customs, is ignorance. Ignorance begets prejudice, and for the poison of prejudice the only antidote is knowledge.

While, then, bidding God-speed to all who, like Agassiz, and

X KEAS0NS WHY ALL PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE SOME

Huxley, and Youmans, and others, are endeavoring to popularize natural science, I desire here to make a special plea for the popularstudy of the Human Body in health and disease.

There are reasons why, especially at the present time, every one should make it a pleasure and a duty to become acquainted with some of the general facts in regard to the structure and functions of the human system, as well as the rules for preserving health, and checking or modifying disease.

These reasons are : —

1. Because the human body is the greatest wonder of creation. Nothing that man can devise, and nothing else that God has created, is worthy to be compared with the complex, wonderful machine which we call man.

A distinguished theologian truly and eloquently says : " Men will cross the ocean to see a mountain or a waterfall, but there is more of grandeur in the human spirit than in all material nature."

Now the human spirit is manifested through the material organization — the body; it therefore becomes necessary that we should study the structure and functions of this body before we can well and truly understand the spirit of which it is the agent. The human brain, through which the soul is manifested, is a far more wonderful object than the loftiest mountain or the broadest ocean. It is true that the gigantic and imposing objects of nature, — mountains and oceans, forests and cataracts, — appeal more directly to the uneducated senses than do those objects which are comparatively minute and insignificant.

The element of size, the grandeur of immensity, the awfulness of height and depth, of length and breadth, can be much better appreciated by the great mass of unthinking and unreasoning humanity than objects which, though far more wonderful and suggestive, are yet less imposing and pretentious. Humanity the world over is more impressed by quantity than by quality. In proportion, however, as men advance in knowledge, in proportion as reason obtains supremacy over imagination, in that proportion will men cease to be impressed by mere size and quantity, and will learn to appreciate the beauty and grandeur of nature as revealed in objects that to the untaught mind would not only not be impressive, but would actually be revolting.

There are those who feel that the study of material substance is undignified and disagreeable. They declare that the study of anatomy suggests the dissecting-room, that the reading of hygiene tends to hypochondriasis, and that all discourses of medicine bring up horrid images of the hospital and sick-room. To all such objec-

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. XI

tions I reply that knowledge itself is dignity, and in turn dignifies and ennobles that which to the untutored senses is insignificant and revolting. The human body is always small and insignificant in comparison with thousands of other created objects, animate and inanimate, and only in exceptional cases is it attractive or beautiful to the eye; and yet it is the most wonderful and suggestive of all.

The brain is but a small portion of the human body : its yielding and sightless mass can readily be held in the hollow of the hand; but in comparison with it all other wonderful objects of nature sink into insignificance. Place but a minute section of that brain beneath the microscope, and what before, to the unaided vision, was as simple in its structure as a formless mass of clay, reveals itself as a vast congeries of cells, group after group, layer on layer, of every variety of shape, infinite in their number, infinite in their communications, and infinite, too, as we may suppose, in their functions. Subject a fragment of that brain to the tests of chemistry, and we learn that the elements of which it is composed are substantially similar to those out of which are developed thousands of organized products of nature ; and thence we are forced to infer that the vast superiority in function and capacity over all other created objects must be due solely or chiefly to some subtle and mysterious difference of molecular arrangement, which neither the microscope nor chemistry have yet been able to fathom.

2. A general knowledge of medical science will aid us in preserving health and prolonging life, and thus will add much to our usefulness and happiness.

The great art in medical science is not so much to cure disease as to prevent it. The great progress that medicine has made in recent times is shown not so much in the actual treatment of disease — although here also we are far more successful than formerly — as in forestalling and preventing it by obedience to the laws of health and wholesome sanitary reform.

For all that we are, and for all that we do in life, we are dependent on the body. The difference between one man and another is the difference in quantity and quality of bodily formation ; for the soul manifests itself through the brain, which is an organ of the body, and is as much dependent on the brain for the character of its manifestations as the digestion is dependent on the apparatus of digestion.

Strictly speaking, there can probably be no such thing as a disease of the mind without a corresponding disease of some part of the body, and usually of the brain, which is the organ of the mind. In view of this consideration we see that it becomes a liisrh and

Xll REASONS WHY ALL PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE SOME

solemn duty for every one to obtain some general knowledge of the human system in health and disease, in order to guard against evil, to ward off injury, to intensify and prolong existence.

It should be remembered that every evil that is experienced by the human system, every pain, every sorrow, every disease, comes by the operations of the great law of cause and effect. Nothing evil or good comes to us by chance. Contagions, epidemics, malarias, the myriad forms of nervous disease, the subtle and saddening phases of insanity and delirium — all these myriad woes of the human races are dependent on definite causes, many of which may be guarded against by those who have the requisite knowledge.

A general knowledge of medical science will help us to fulfil more intelligently and successfully our various duties as members of society.

Science must not be confined to scientific men. A knowledge of science in its various departments, and especially a general knowledge of the structure and operations of the human body and of some of the laws of disease, will make us better lawyers, better clergymen, better merchants, better farmers, better laborers, better mechanics and artisans, better wives and mothers and husbands and fathers, better citizens, and better in every condition and relation of society.

The habit of studying and reading on science is important, not only for the facts that we learn, hut on account of the habit which we thereby form of looMng at questions from a scientific point of view. We are all of us too much inclined to form our opinions from prejudice, and from a general impression, without regard to truth or facts. The consequence is that society is filled with error. The consequence is, that even in this enlightened age and throughout this enlightened country, the opinions of masses of people on nearly every important subject are more or less erroneous. On nearly every page of this present work I have been obliged to refute some deeply-rooted, widely-spread error concerning diet, or stimulants and narcotics, or sleep, or exercise, or some form of disease. Erroneous views on medical science confront the physician wherever he turns — in the street, in the store, at public assemblies, in the halls of legislatures and chambers of justice, in the periodical literature and in our standard works of genius, in every family, and by every bedside.

These are not the results of ignorance alone. They are the results of a deficiency in the scientific spirit, and an excess of dogmatic prejudices in society.

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. Xlll

The scientific spirit differs from the dogmatic spirit in these respects :

First. In the pursuit of truth it endeavors to dismiss all prejudice, all preconceived impressions. It has no theories to prove and no wishes to gratify, except the love of truth.

Secondly. It never assumes that anything is true until it is proved to be true / and, always holds itself ready and willing to change any views, however dear or long-cherished, as soon as they are proved to be erroneous.

Thirdly. When it has found the truth on any subject, after careful and patient balancing of all the facts that bear upon it, it eagerly embraces and proclaims that truth, without ever asking for an instant uihether its apparent tendencies may be good or evil.

The great want of our country at the present time is a wider diffusion of this scientific spirit, so that men will form their opinions, especially on social and political topics, less by their hopes and desires, expectations and fears, and more by the facts.

When I write on the ignorance of the country on matters of science, I know not where to begin or where to end. This ignorance is not confined to the lower classes ; it is even more prominently observed and far more injuriouslj T felt among the educated and influential. In our country this scientific ignorance is especially to be deplored, because here all men are created free and equal, all have equal voice in the administration of government, and all have equal chance to rise to positions of honor and influence. Our present social, legislative, and judicial systems are so defective, that men who know nothing whatever of science are continually called upon to decide important scientific questions affecting the rights, the privileges, and the duties of those who, perhaps, know far more than t ne Jj n °t only of science, but of every other department of thought.

Legislatures, not one of whose members can answer the simplest fundamental question concerning the nature or the history of stimulants and narcotics, who do not know and have not thought to inquire whether they came chiefly into use fifteen hundred years before Christ or fifteen hundred after, are yet every year called upon to enact laws to prohibit or regulate their use in society. Is it surprising that their legislation is so absurd and inconsistent? Judges and juries, who have not the faintest conception whether insanity is a symptom of disease of the brain or of the liver — who in all their lives have never given five minutes of consecutive thought to any scientific subject whatever — are compelled, under our present system of laws, to decide on this momentous question

XIV REASONS WHY ALL PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE SOME

of sanity or insanity, not only in cases of life and death, but also in cases where property even, so much more valued than life, is at stake. Is it surprising that the wicked so often escape and the irresponsible are so often punished ?

Clergymen, editors, and public teachers, who know all subjects better than they know the science of life, are expected and required to pronounce upon the right or wrong of questions which do not and should not rise into the sphere of morals until they have first been determined in the sphere of experience. Is it surprising that even our most conscientious public instructors must sometimes put darkness for light and light for darkness on many of these important themes ?

Parents and guardians, who have never themselves been properly taught concerning the structure or the functions of the human body, are obliged to train up their children to the same dogmas and prejudices and erroneous impressions by which they themselves have been inspired. Is it surprising that our children grow up in error? "Would it not indeed be still more surprising if they possessed any true or real knowledge on any question of hygienic or medical science ?

The truth is, that there is scarcely any important social, political, or religious question of our time that may not be aided in its solution by a knowledge of the leading principles of medical science. The rights and duties of women, the status of the Africans, the future of the Chinese, and many other analogous questions of minor importance, would be solved much more readily and more correctly if philanthropy would not so blindly refuse the aid of physiology. But, unfortunately for the cause of truth, only those who have at least some general knowledge of medical science, or who have enjoyed some training in that department, are willing to listen to arguments based on the facts of science, especially when they militate against their prejudices and desires. Prof. Goldwin Smith, in his masterly address on education recently delivered at Albany, said that the voice of physiology should be heard on this great question of the education of woman ; but until the people, both the leaders and the masses, are educated into a scientific spirit, the efforts of physiology will be vain. Though she cry aloud in every language and on every corner of the street, yet her speech will be in an unknown tongue, and her voice will be drowned in the jeers and groans of the multitude.

It cannot be denied that even at the present time there exists a deeply-seated prejudice against scientific men. They are regarded as the enemies of truth, although their professed object is the pur-

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. XV

suit of truth. They are branded with meaningless but repulsive epithets, — materialists, infidels, atheists, — and are held up before the people as solemn and impressive warnings. The cure for this unfortunate prejudice lies in the general diffusion of scientific knowledge.

4. The study of the principles and facts of medical science is exceedingly pleasurable.

If the pursuit of knowledge is the highest and most enduring pleasure of life, the study of science is the most enjoyable department of knowledge.

The calm and unworried pursuit of science is probably the purest and most enduring intellectual pleasure of which human nature is capable. It is also exceedingly conducive to health. As will be shown in my essay on the Influence of Occupations on Health and Longevity, philosophers and men of science attain a great average longevity.

Children should be instructed in the interesting and important departments of physiology and hygiene, not only at school, but in the family circle. It is not right nor necessary that the study of these subjects should be made dry and dismal. By the aid of maps, charts, pictures, attractive books, and especially by the exercise of kindly care on the part of instructors, these theories can be made not only instructive but actually fascinating. The commandments of physiology and hygiene should be taught diligently unto our children, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, in the house and by the way, at their lying down and their rising up. Much of the scientific instruction given to children in early life will not be fully understood in all its transcendent importance until after years ; but in time of need they will both remember and appreciate its value.

They will remember it when they rise to positions of responsibility and posts of honor, and will guide their judgment and inspire their lives by its teachings. They will remember it in the hour of temptation, and will derive therefrom wisdom to direct and strength to resist the force of mastering passions. They will remember it in the time of darkness and sorrow, and will rejoice in the light of its truths, and find the rarest of consolation in the activity of its pursuit. They will remember it when they themselves are parents, and in turn will teach it to their children, and they again to their children's children, unto the remotest generations.