The Natural Cure of Consumption, Constipation, Bright's Disease, Neuralgia, Rheumatism, "Colds" (Fevers), Etc.: How Sickness Originates, and How to Prevent It. A Health Manual for the People.Page, C. E. (Charles Edward)
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The Natural Cure of Consumption, Constipation, Bright's Disease, Neuralgia, Rheumatism, "Colds" (Fevers), Etc.: How Sickness Originates, and How to Prevent It. A Health Manual for the People.
Page, C. E. (Charles Edward)
Hygiene -- Popular works; Medicine, Popular
As well as when up and about, is a matter of importance to the sick or
well. With the sick, the habit of “rounding up” to the disease is every
way prejudicial. Consumptives are especially inclined to seek present ease
to their ultimate hurt. It should be one of the aims, in “lung
difficulties,” to increase the breadth of the chest in order to give more
room for the expansion of the lungs; and this demands increased efforts to
expand the lungs, and to push the shoulders back——gradually, very
gradually, never to the extreme, but with steady persistence. No radical
and immediate change must be looked for; none can be accomplished, in any
direction, whether in the shape of the body, quality of lung tissue, or
breathing power; but a gradual transformation may be inaugurated, and
ensured by means of persistent effort, as the general health improves. It
is best to lie, at least much of the time spent in bed, as nearly flat
upon the back as possible, slightly inclining toward the side, or
alternating between the two positions, with the head low; arms and legs
“at ease,” the latter not drawn or “curled” up, but slightly relaxed. If
the general regimen is strictly hygienic, the position as thus described
will, so far from working any harm, prove of advantage——favoring free
breathing, as well as the fullest rest of the body. Where there is
shortness of breath and difficulty in breathing, the patient is inclined
to cultivate the habit of narrowing the shoulders, and so bolstering
himself in bed as to still further shorten the breath, thus temporarily
easing the difficulty, but finally increasing the disease. He needs to
courageously take the opposite course (never rashly, however), and meet
the consequences, which are likely to be manifested in some increase of
coughing and raising——the very things he needs to do, but which he is apt
to shrink from as much as possible. In avoiding natural “expectorants,”
the necessity for artificial ones seems to arise. In the one case he
raises with some effort what, in his present state, may be described as
the normal amount of mucus; in the other, expectoration is easier because
there is more to raise. The former is curative; the latter tends to
fatality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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