Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

alcohol is a vasomotor paralyzant, that one must counteract the effects of the other as surely as an alkali will naturalize the acids.

What is needed in all cases of either exhaustion or shock, are those substances which will promote nutrition and add energy to all the normal physiological functions of the body. Alcohol cannot do this. Its physiological action is directly the reverse. of this. It has not the power of even whipping into action the reserve energy of the body, while, according to Virchow and Becker, "it poisons the blood, arrests development and hastens the decay of the red corpuscles." And Richardson declared: "It is strong only to destroy." Alcohol belongs to that class of irritants whose immediate action is depressant. Drs. Sansbury and

Ringer tell us, that the paralyzing effects of alcohol are noticed in the beginning, there being no prior stage of increased contraction, while Professor Martin, of Johns' Hopkins University, says, in substance, that its paralyzing influence begins within a minute after its administration.

Its apparent stimulating effect depends, according to Dr. Brunton, of London, in his lectures on the action of medicines, and Professor Cushny, in his work on pharmacology, upon its paralyzing effects upon. the vagus, which is the inhibitor of the heart's action.

of the purposes for which it is usually administered there is danger that its use may induce those physiologic and pathologic changes which would develop into that condition known as alcoholism. A patient had better die sober than live drunk, even if alcohol had the power (which it has not) to extend his earthly career a little longer than it would have been without it.

Finally, I am opposed to the use of alcohol in surgical practice, because, in its use, we should be substituting an unreliable, unscientific remedy for those which are scientifically indicated, and which clinical experience has demonstrated to be infinitely superior in the general results of their administration.

Let no man seek to bolster up the use of alcohol in surgery on the ground that it has, as is claimed by many, a primary and secondary action. No drug has two such opposite actions.

What is referred to as secondary action. of a drug is but the reaction of the organism through which the powers of life finally triumph over the effects of the foreign substance, or sink under the overwhelming force of its destructive influence.

FOODS OF THE NATIONS.

IT is always interesting to know something of the amounts of different classes of foods consumed by the inhabitants of a country and from data taken from an article in Food and Cookery, we gather material for the following table:

In prescribing for patients sinking from exhaustion, resulting from any cause, we should never lose sight of this thought: No cardiac or vasomotor depressant can act otherwise than injuriously in such cases. Hence, I repeat and insist that our opposition to the use of alcohol as a remedial agent in surgery, as it is commonly employed, admits of no exception. And I ask, how can a substance which diminishes nerve force, mental force, muscular force, Germany heat force, and metabolic force, generate and sustain vital force in the body.-all of which results, according to the highest recognized authorities, follow the administration of alcohol.

My third objection to the use of alcohol in surgery is this: While it can fulfil none

United States. Great Britain. Ireland..

France.. Canada.. Japan..

Sweden.

Russia.

Italy.

[blocks in formation]

The blank space does not mean that no food of that particular product is consumed by the inhabitants of a country but rather that the data is wanting.-Sanitary Home.

[blocks in formation]

The shepherds, now, from every walk and steep,
Where grateful feed attracts the dainty sheep,
Collect their locks, and plunge them in the
streams,

And cleanse their fleeces in the noontide beams.
This care performed, arrives another care
To catch them, one by one, their wool to shear;
Then come the tying, clipping, tarring, bleating;
The shearer's final shout, and dance, and eating.
From hence the old engravers sometimes made
This month a shearer at his trade:
And hence the symbol to the season true,
A living hand so traces June to you.

Hone's Every day Book, 1827.

WHY DO DOCTORS DIE YOUNG?

IT has passed into a sort of statistical proverb, the truth of which no one seems to question, that doctors as a class die young. In the mortuary estimates and Expectation of Life tables of the insurance companies physicians are graded as belonging to one of the shortest lived professions. Lawyers, ministers, musicians, teachers, all the other classes of professional men, unless it be actors, outlive them. Even the farmers, who live amid the scantest opportunities for living up to hygienic ideals, are considered better insurance risks than doctors.

Of the world in general these statistics may be reliable. In this country, taking the gathered necrologic reports of the past few years, which probably approximate the average of a series of years, there is ample

reason to question the older statistics. It is time to revise Parr's tables.

Several of our enterprising medical journals have been taking especial pains to record the mortality among medical men of the entire country. In this interesting field the Medical Review of Reviews easily takes the lead. With the data at command from this and other available sources we have tabulated statistics of 666 deaths of physicians, without discrimination. Of this number one lived to be 108 years, 9 reached 90 years, and 68 died at 80 or over. Among the younger ages 282 died at 70 or over and 394 were over 60 at death; 421 lived over 50 years, 523 died between 40 and 50, and only 24 died under 30.

Of those dying at the younger ages the causes as far as indicated in the records belong for the most part in the class of preventable or avoidable diseases. Accident, negligence and gross carelessness would cover most of them, vicious habits and accidents resulting from the same coming in for their share.

Laymen who ruin their health by the indulgence of unhygienic habits may have the excuse of ignorance, doctors certainly have not. The physician is supposed to be an exemplar for all members of the community, as regards his personal habits, his diet, sanitary observances and general mode of living.

Glancing at the doctor's habits how do they comport with this reasonable expectation?

To begin with most doctors are haphazard feeders, eating at all hours of the day or night, and indulging at times in the most abominable of all modern dietetic abominations, from paté de foie gras to parchment pastry, Roquefort cheese, lobster salad and bologna.

These assumed "generous feeders" generally wash down their solid food with copious potations, the nature, origin and effects of which they do not stop to question, morally conscious that few if any of them. could pass the inspection of an unbiased Health Board.

Among them are some dietetic cranks, "very intelligent physicians" as such intelligence goes, who tell patients that they must not eat fruit, that strawberies are deadly poison, and that oatmeal is only fit for Scots and horses. These fellows usually die early of Diabetes or Bright's, or they land in "Retreats" prepared for paranoiacs.

As to physical habits and training, rarely is the doctor familiar with any comprehensive system of gymnastics, athletics or exercise of any kind. He takes no pains to attain a symmetrical development of his own muscles, let alone those of his patients. A few of them know a tennis racket from a tamborine, but a majority never strode a horse or a wheel, either wobble or waddle when they walk, or become stoopshouldered as they reach middle age.

In cities, if successfully established and luckily if not worthily "in the swim" they belong to several societies and a club or two, all of which hold stated though not always decorous meetings, in stuffy, unventilated halls, keep late hours, smoke strong cigars and drink high-priced cognac and cocktails, winding up each evening's "letup" with a hearty lunch or swell dinner, quite as uncalled for as it is indigestible.

Instance as an example the new temple of Aesculapius, the Academy of Medicine

on

Forty-third street. How proud its founders, when after strenuous efforts the funds were secured for its erection!

Hosack Hall, to say the least, is not a model of hygienic arrangement. If it has any system of ventilation it is practically invisible. It is in the heart of the structure, with not a single window or outside door. No stray sunbeam will ever pierce its subterranean gloom or scatter the ghosts of its dead and dying presidents whose portraits in oil adorn its walls. But it does not lack its sideboard and diningroom; and when bored members, semi-stupid from listening to longwinded papers droned by professional dudes and dillettante doctors who have a scalpel to grind or a saw to file, are on the point of somnolence, the presi

dent's gavel announces adjournment, the rear partition in its entire length rises slowly to the ceiling and discloses a banquet hall with loaded tables, overflowing punchbowls, colored lights, and cigar lighters.

Do a majority of them practise as they ought to preach-temperance in all things and avoidance of late suppers? Rather do not most of them partake freely and then go home reeking of nicotin, and prone to dream of nocturnal horses and to see ghosts of their ancestors

"Doomed, for a certain term, to walk the night;

And, for the day, confined-to fast in fires."

Unquestionably a good many doctors die young, altogether too young, but the wonder is that more of them do not succumb to some one of the numerous forms of fatal disturbance that follow in the wake of reckless habits of living. There is no rational excuse for the frequent cases of acute indigestion, heart failure and cerebral hemorrhage that occur among profesional men.

Another object lesson can be learned by studying their bibative habits. Too many physicians drink everything that is set before them, unless it be water! Strong tea and stronger coffee, beer by the barrel, if German, and wine, whiskey and brandy if too esthetic for beer. Alcoholism it must be confessed is not at all uncommon among physicians. They know its disgrace and its final results, but they are probably more tempted than any other profession. The stuff is always within reach, and of all men. doctors more frequently "feel the need of it." They overwork, they lose sleep, they witness scenes of suffering, depravity and horror until they are distracted, exasperated, and exhausted. They begin by "bracing up," they finally end by becoming slaves to the worst tyrant known to human experience.

They worship at the shrine of "My Lady Nicotine," and wind up with a smoker's heart that flickers out just when they ought to be in their prime.

And yet, in spite of all these handicaps

the American doctor attains a longevity that averages with that of any of the professions.

To be sure the number of observations used in this estimate is not large, but there is no reason why it should not be accepted as representative and average. It includes the names of men who have lived in all parts of this country and representing every state and territory in the Union.

be at table, in the kind or degree of muscular exercise, or of the passionate nature. Other influences are climate, environment, and intellectual overstrain. No man can be excessive in any of these directions and maintain his vigor to a rounded period. His mind, his muscles or his passionate nature, or all of them together flag and leave him young in years but old in the mental, moral or physical decrepitude that constitutes age regardless of years.

"ADVANCED AGE."

THE daily papers have made frequent references to the above expression in discussing the chances of distinguished citizens who have been reported as "critically ill" with pneumonia or some other acute disease. A correspondent of the Sun calls the expression in question and practically asks what is "advanced age?" He then proceeds to cite numerous living examples of men who are near or have passed the threescore-and-ten mark and are still active business captains and full of vigorous manhood. Among the number, Pierpont Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Admiral Dewey, James J. Hill, W. D. Howells, Dr. John S. Billings, President Eliot of Harvard, Secretary Hay, Rev. Dr. Huntington, Bishop Potter, Ambassador Choate, Senator Depew, Marquis of Salisbury, Lord Kelvin, Goldwin Smith, Senator Hoar, John Bigelow and Joseph Jefferson.

The list might be much extended, but it is long enough to emphasize the fact that years are no criterion by which to measure a man's age-some men are older at forty than others at seventy. The physical profligate and debauchee is out of the race before some men have fairly matured. When the candle is burned at both ends the middle is soon reached, or else it is suffocated in its own substance.

It is conceded that individuals are born with good and bad constitutions, but for the most part premature age is a result of wrong habits of living. The excesses may

DYING BY INCHES.

Very many people live to a ripe age and yet begin to die when comparatively young. Few people who have reached their fortieth birthday manage to live "all over." They have begun to be bald, or if not bald then they are gray, showing that the hair is dead or dying. Nature lops off the weakest or least necessary of the normal functions. Heads can get along without hair, and hair can survive the loss of its color. Or they begin to wear glasses, showing that the eyes are beginning to decay. The man who has lived a "rapid" youth loses some of his vital functions long before his body is ready for the undertaker.

Other senses go-hearing, taste, smell, muscular elasticity. There is a stoop in the gait, a halt in the step, a want of tone in the flexors and extensors. Some of the joints. lose flexibility-becoming banks of deposit. but not of issue.

The subjects of these insidious changes do not so realize it, but they are "dying at the top," like the sugar maples of Vermont after having been bled for maple syrup for thirty or forty years. They are dying by

inches.

SUNSHINE AND HEALTH.

A MERCHANT noticed, in the progress of years, that each successive book-keeper gradually lost his health, and finally died of consumption, however vigorous and robust he was on entering his service. At length it occurred to him that the little rear room where the books were kept opened in a back yard, so surrounded by high walls that no sunshine came into it from one year's end to another.

An upper room, well lighted, was immediately prepared, and his clerks had uniform good health ever after.

A familiar case to general readers is derived from medical works, where an entire English family became ill, and all remedies seemed to fail of their usual results, when accidentally a window-glass of the familyroom was broken, in cold weather.

It was

not repaired, and forthwith there was a marked improvement in the health of the inmates. The physician at once traced the connection, discontinued his medicines, and ordered that the window-pane should not be replaced.

A French lady became ill. The most eminent physicians of her time were called in, but failed to restore her. At length Dupeytren, the Napoleon of physic, was consulted. He noticed that she lived in a dim room, into which the sun never shone, the house being situated in one of the narrow streets, or, rather, lanes of Paris. He at once ordered more airy and cheerful apartments, and "all her complaints vanished."

The lungs of a dog become tuberculated (consumptive) in a few weeks if kept confined in a dark cellar. The most common plant grows spindly, pale and scraggling if no sunlight falls upon it. The greatest medical names in France, of the last century, regarded sunshine and pure air as equal agents in restoring and maintaining health.

From these facts, which cannot be disputed, the most common mind should conclude that cellars and rooms on the northern side of buildings, or apartments into

which the sun does not immediately shine, should never be occupied as family rooms or chambers, or as libraries or studies. Such apartments are only fit for purposes which never require persons to remain in them over a few minutes at a time. And every intelligent and humane parent will arrange that the living room and the bedrooms shall be the most commodious, lightest, and brightest apartments in his dwelling.

THE VANISHING ARMY.

THE report of the Grand Army officials for the year 1900 shows a fast increasing rate of mortality among the old boys who wore the blue. It is really a vanishing Grand Army, and at each recurring annual rollcall the number of those who respond diminishes. During 1900 the number of deaths in the veteran organization was 10,899, decidedly the largest mortality since the organization of the Grand Army of the Republic by the late Dr. Stephenson, soon after the closing of the war. The total number of deaths in 1886 was 2,620. In 1890 the total went beyond 5,000, and was between 7,000 and 8,000 annually until last year, when there was a heavy increase. With the weight of years and incapacitated for manual labor as the result of sickness and disability in the service of the Union, the list of old soldiers who have answered the Great Commander is growing year by year, and from the present rate of increase more than half of the soldiers who participated in the war of the rebellion will soon have passed away. In 1890 the membership of the Grand Army was 400,489; last year it had been reduced to 276,662, with the annual mortality approaching 4 per cent.

It is almost thirty-six years since Robert E. Lee gave his sword to Grant at the close of the latter's wonderful campaign in front of Richmond, and most of the survivors of the Union army are 60 years of age or more. The late President McKinley, who served with honor and distinction in the

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »