The Project Gutenberg eBook of Enquire Within Upon Everything

It is impossible to urge too strongly the necessity, in all cases of cholera, of instant recourse to medical aid, and also in every form and variety of indisposition; for all disorders are found to merge in the dominant disease.

Let immediate Relief be sought under disorder of the bowels especially, however slight. The invasion of cholera may thus be readily prevented.

Let every Impurity, animal and vegetable, be quickly removed to a distance from the habitation, such as slaughterhouses, pig-sties, cesspools, necessaries, and all other domestic nuisances.

Let all Uncovered Drains be carefully and frequently cleansed.

Let the Grounds in and around the habitation be drained, so as effectually to carry off moisture of every kind.

Let all Partitions he removed from within and without habitations, which unnecessarily impede ventilation.

Let every Room be daily thrown open for the admission of fresh air; this should be done about noon, when the atmosphere is most likely to be dry.

Let Dry Scrubbing be used in domestic cleansing in place of water cleansing.

Let excessive Fatigue, and exposure to damp and cold, especially during the night, be avoided.

Let the Use of Cold Drinks and acid liquors, especially under fatigue, be avoided, or when the body is heated.

Let the Use of Cold Acid Fruits and vegetables be avoided.

Let Excess in the use of ardent and fermented liquors and tobacco be avoided.

Let a Poor Diet, and the use of impure water in cooking, or for drinking, be avoided.

Let the Wearing of wet and insufficient clothes be avoided.

Let a Flannel or woollen belt be worn round the belly.

Let Personal Cleanliness be carefully observed.

Let every cause tending to depress the moral and physical energies be carefully avoided. Let exposure to extremes of heat and cold be avoided.

Let Crowding of persons within houses and apartments be avoided.

Let Sleeping in low or damp rooms be avoided.

Let Fires be kept up during the night in sleeping or adjoining apartments, the night being the period of most danger from attack, especially under exposure to cold or damp.

Let all Bedding and clothing be daily exposed during winter and spring to the fire, and in summer to the heat of the sun.

Let the Dead be buried in places remote from the habitations of the living. By the timely adoption of simple means such as these, cholera, or other epidemic, will be made to lose its venom.

The Loveliest Bird has No Song.

909. Rules for the Preservation of Health

910. Fresh Air

Pure atmospheric air is composed of nitrogen, oxygen, and a

very

small proportion of carbonic acid gas. Air once breathed has lost the chief part of its oxygen, and acquired a proportionate increase of carbonic acid gas.

Therefore

, health requires that we breathe the same air once only.

911. Diet and Exercise

The solid part of our Bodies is continually wasting, and requires to be repaired by fresh substances.

Therefore

, food which is to repair the loss, should be taken with due regard to the exercise and waste of the body.

912. Water

The fluid part of our bodies also wastes constantly; there is but one fluid in animals, which is water.

Therefore

, water only is necessary, and no artifice can produce a better drink.

913. Proportion of Food and Drink

The fluid of our bodies is to the solid in proportion as nine to one.

Therefore

, a like proportion should prevail in the total amount of food taken.

914. Sunshine

Light exercises an important influence upon the growth and vigour of animals and plants.

Therefore

, our dwellings should freely admit the solar rays.

915. Bad Odours

Decomposing animal and vegetable substances yield various noxious gases which enter the lungs and corrupt the blood.

Therefore

, all impurities should be kept away from our abodes, and every precaution be observed to secure a pure atmosphere.

916. Warmth

Warmth is essential to all the bodily functions.

Therefore

, an equal bodily temperature should be maintained by exercise, by clothing, or by fire.

917. Exercise and Clothing

Exercise warms, invigorates and purifies the body; clothing preserves the warmth the body generates; fire imparts warmth externally.

Therefore

, to obtain and preserve warmth, exercise and clothing are preferable to fire.

918. Ventilation

Fire consumes the Oxygen of the air, and produces noxious gases.

Therefore

, the air is less pure in the presence of candles, gas, or coal fire, than otherwise, and the deterioration should be repaired by increased ventilation.

So the Loveliest Woman may Lack Virtue.

919. Clean Skin

The skin is a highly-organized membrane, full of minute pores, cells, bloodvessels, and nerves; it imbibes moisture or throws it off, according to the state of the atmosphere and the temperature of the body. It also "breathes," as do the lungs (though less actively). All the internal organs sympathize with the skin.

Therefore

, it should be repeatedly cleansed.

920. Over-Work

Late hours and anxious pursuits exhaust the nervous system, and produce disease and premature death.

Therefore, the hours of labour and study should be short.

921. Body and Mind

Mental and bodily exercise are equally essential to the general health and happiness.

Therefore

, labour and study should succeed each other.

922. Over-Indulgence

Man will live most healthily upon simple solids and fluids, of which a sufficient but temperate quantity should be taken.

Therefore

, over indulgence in strong drinks, tobacco, snuff, opium, and all mere indulgences, should be avoided.

923. Moderate Temperature

Sudden alternations of heat and cold are dangerous (especially to the young and the aged).

Therefore

, clothing, in quantity and quality, should be adapted to the alternations of night and day, and of the seasons; and drinking cold water when the body is hot, and hot tea and soups when cold, are productive of many evils.

924. Summary

Moderation in eating and drinking, short hours of labour and study, regularity in exercise, recreation, and rest, cleanliness, equanimity of temper and equality of temperature, —these are the great essentials to that which surpasses all wealth,

health of mind and body

925. Homœopathy

926. Principle of Homœopathy

As homœopathy is now practised so widely and, indeed, preferred to the older system in many families, the Domestic Pharmacopœia could scarcely lay claim to be considered complete without a brief mention of the principal remedies used and recommended by homœopathic practitioners, and the disorders for which these remedies are specially applicable. The principle of homœopathy is set forth in the Latin words "

similia similibus curantur

," the meaning of which is "likes are cured by likes."

The meaning of this is simply that the homœopathist in order to cure a disease, administers a medicine which would produce in a perfectly healthy subject, symptoms

like

, but not

identical

with or the

same

as, the symptoms to counteract which the medicine is given. The homœopathic practitioner, therefore, first makes himself thoroughly acquainted with the symptoms that are exhibited by the sufferer; having ascertained these, in order to neutralize them and restore the state of the patient's health to a state of equilibrium, so to speak, he administers preparations that would produce symptoms of a like character in persons in good health.

It is not said, be it remembered, that the drug can produce in a healthy person the disease from which the patient is suffering: it is only advanced by homœopathists that the drug given has the power of producing in a person in health, symptoms similar to those of the disease under which the patient is languishing, and that the correct mode of treatment is to counteract the disease symptoms by the artificial production of similar symptoms by medicinal means, or in other words, to suit the medicine to the disorder, by a previously acquired knowledge of the effects of the drug, by experiment on a healthy person.

927. Allopathy

Allopathy is the name given to the older treatment of disorders, and the name is obtained from the fact, that the drugs given, do not produce symptoms corresponding to those of the disease for whose relief they are administered as in homœopathy. The introduction of the term is contemporary with homœopathy itself. It was merely given to define briefly the distinction that exists between the rival modes of treatment, and it has been accepted and adopted by all medical men who have no faith in homœopathy, and the treatment that its followers prescribe.

Deep Rivers Flow with Silent Majesty.

928. Comparison

Allopathic treatment is said to be experimental, while homeopathic treatment is based on certainty, resulting from experience. The allopathist tries various drugs, and if one medicine or one combination of drugs fails, tries another; but the homœopathist administers only such medicaments as may be indicated by the symptoms of the patient. If two drugs are given, as is frequently, and perhaps generally, the case, it is because the symptoms exhibited are of such a character that they cannot be produced in a healthy person by the action of one and the same drug, and, consequently cannot be counteracted or neutralized by the action of a single drug.

929. Homœopathic Medicines

Homœopathic medicines are given in the form of globules or tinctures, the latter being generally preferred by homeopathic practitioners. When contrasted with the doses of drugs given by allopathists, the small doses administered by homœopathists must at first sight appear wholly in adequate to the purpose for which they are given; but homœopathists, whose dilution and trituration diffuse the drug given throughout the vehicle in which it is administered, argue that by this

extension of its surface

the active power of the drug is greatly increased; and that there is reason in this argument is shown by the fact that large doses of certain drugs administered for certain purposes will pass through the system without in any way affecting those organs, which will be acted on most powerfully by the very same drugs when administered in much smaller doses. Thus a small dose of sweet spirit of nitre will act on the skin and promote perspiration, but a large dose will act as a diuretic only, and exert no influence on the skin.

930. Treatment of Ailments by Homœopathy

Great stress is laid by homœopathists on attention to diet, but not so much so in the present day as when the system was first introduced. The reader will find a list of articles of food that may and may not be taken in

par

961

. For complete direction on this point, and on diseases and their treatment and remedies, he must be referred to works on this subject by Dr. Richard Epps and others. All that can be done here is to give briefly a few of the more common ailments "that flesh is heir to," with the symptoms by which they are indicated, and the medicines by which they may be alleviated and eventually cured.

931. Asthma

Asthma, an ailment which should be referred in all cases to the medical practitioner.

Symptoms

. Difficulty of breathing, with cough, either spasmodic and without expectoration, or accompanied with much expectoration.

Medicines

. Aconitum napellus, especially with congestion or slight spitting of blood; Antimonium tartaricum for wheezing and rattling in the chest; Arsenicum for chronic asthma; ipecacuanha; Nux vomica.

932. Bilious Attacks

Bilious attacks, if attended with diarrhœa and copious evacuations of a bright yellow colour.

Medicines

. Bryonia, if arising from sedentary occupations, or from eating and drinking too freely; or Nux vomica and Mercurius in alternation, the former correcting constipation and the latter nausea, fulness at the pit of the stomach, and a foul tongue.

933. Bronchitis

Symptoms