A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 1 : $b Pathology and general diseases
History
A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 1 : $b Pathology and general diseases
Medicine -- Practice
A very large amount of food is now furnished preserved in tin cans,
and it is almost invariably of excellent quality. There is a
possibility of the contamination of such food by the salts of lead or
tin, but such contamination to an extent which is injurious to health
must be so extremely rare as to be hardly worth considering. The
danger from the entrance of parasites, such as trichinæ, etc., in the
food is also extremely small--in fact, is nothing where the food is
properly cooked.
Milk has so often been the cause of disease, and is so universally
used, that it seems worth while to refer to it again. The special
aptitude of milk for absorption of odors has long been known, and of
late years it has been clearly proven in a number of instances that
milk has been the means of conveying the cause of typhoid fever and of
scarlatina. Diphtheria, yellow fever, and intermittent fever have also
been supposed to be conveyed by milk. The variety of nutritive
principles contained in milk, which makes it so valuable as a food,
also gives it the power of sustaining many different sorts of minute
organisms, and it perhaps comes as near being a universal
culture-fluid as anything yet devised for that purpose. The
possibilities of the contamination of milk are so numerous, and
especially in the case of that furnished from small establishments,
that, in the case of outbreaks of typhoid or diarrhoeal diseases in a
town, investigations into causation should always include the milk- as
well as the water-supply. Milk from diseased animals is no doubt often
used without producing bad results, but its effects in conveying to
man the disease known as milk-sickness are well established, and it
has also been known to produce symptoms of the contagious aphthæ, or
foot-and-mouth disease, in man, when derived from an animal affected
with that disease. The only danger in the use of the milk of animals
fed upon sewage-grown grass appears to be in the possible
contamination of the milk, after it is drawn, by particles of dust in
the stable, derived from the food or litter of the animal or from
uncleanliness of the exterior of the udder, etc.
VIII. INTEMPERANCE.--Every one knows that alcoholic drinks are the
cause of a vast amount of disease, crime, and misery in all civilized
countries. No one knows how this is to be prevented, for no one knows
how to make the great mass of the people wise and contented. The
effects produced by excessive use of alcohol are well known to all
physicians, and the remedy is self-evident. I see no use in adding to
the heap of useless rubbish which exists in the shape of the great
mass of existing {198} popular literature on this subject, and
therefore leave the subject to the reader, who is quite sure to know
all that is really important on this subject.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account