Obesity, or Excessive Corpulence: The Various Causes and the Rational Means of Cure — John Shaqi
Obesity, or Excessive Corpulence: The Various Causes and the Rational Means of CureDancel, J.-F. (Jean-François)
Science
Obesity, or Excessive Corpulence: The Various Causes and the Rational Means of Cure
Dancel, J.-F. (Jean-François)
Obesity; Weight loss
recovered the use of his legs. What astonished him most was that he
had been able to perform the journey on foot, without once taking his
hat off. The latter remark may appear trivial; it shows, however,
the great inconvenience he had been wont to suffer from the violent
perspiration hitherto induced by the slightest exercise. By the end of
the month Guénaud had reduced his weight from one hundred and ninety to
one hundred and seventy-four pounds, and his circumference round the
belly from fifty to forty-three inches. He was recovering his activity,
both of mind and body, and his respiration was already considerably
improved. The treatment was continued two months longer, and at the
end of the three months his circumference was reduced fourteen inches,
having lost forty pounds of fat. His muscular powers were now much
increased. Guénaud had a very short neck; the two masses of fat, which
made his cheeks appear continuous with his chest, have disappeared.
The line of the lower jaw is now perfectly distinct, and without the
slightest wrinkle. Instead of his former aged appearance, induced by
obesity, his figure is now youthful, his countenance intelligent and
sparkling. Before commencing my system of treatment, the patient was in
continual danger from threatening head symptoms. It was generally said,
even by the medical men under whose care he had placed himself, that
he suffered from excess of blood; yet he has not lost a single drop
during the whole course of treatment, and is now free from somnolency,
giddiness and headache. The veins of the head are no longer turgid, nor
does he suffer from excessive perspiration of the head.
I am satisfied that this man, at the present time, has more blood
in his system than he had when labouring under obesity; but the
circulation being now free, all inconvenience has disappeared.
It is unnecessary to add that, owing to the lungs being no longer
oppressed on all sides by a superabundance of fat, their movement is
unimpeded, air finds easy access, and the difficulty of breathing,
with sense of impending suffocation, no longer exist. Guénaud can now
sleep in the ordinary recumbent position. Men of great corpulence, when
walking, experience severe pain in the kidneys, and this arises from
the enormous mass of fat which surrounds these organs, inducing by its
weight a dragging sensation. Guénaud, having lost his big belly, is no
longer troubled with this uneasiness when walking.
With respect to this patient, and in all the other cases which have
come under my care, it may be well to remark that the muscular system
has recovered its tone, and that the muscles are harder than they were
before treatment; and I can safely say, without fear of contradiction,
that every person who has been submitted to my system for the cure of
obesity, is convinced that his flesh, his muscle, has increased both in
firmness and in size.
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