ORIGIN OF CONSTITUTIONAL DISEASE. 235

in albuminous principles. Their progress is favoured by that which lowers the health and disturbs nutrition. The food, which ought to proceed to the nourishment of the great organs and moving powers of the body, is interrupted in its course, and diverted to engender morbid processes, or add to malorganizations already begun. In some individuals, extraordinary obesity is the result; and where subcutaneous fat only is created, it often serves as a relief to a plethoric habit. In others, low hydro-carbonaceous products show themselves in the urine in the form of sugar or urates. We can thus readily enough account for the most striking phenomena of scrofula, phthisis, diabetes, gout, &c., according to the proclivity of the individual to one or other form of disease; nor will it appear wonderful to the philosophic physician that maladies, of aspect so strikingly different, should yet own an origin in some respects

common.

These are not creations of the fancy; they are exemplified in the daily experience of every physician. What observation so common as the origin of scrofula in an impoverished condition of

diseases, where this germ lies concealed, and in what symptoms and organs this discord is to be sought. In general, as already remarked, it can only be said that the cause and symptoms especially point to the nervous system." (Braun's Translation. )

health? Is it not observed, that a low quality of food tends to its increase, and a generous diet to its extinction? Does it not infest the close and pestilential manufactory, all low, marshy, and mephitic places? Is it not cured by pure good air, as well as by good food? Do we not turn our scrofulous patients out of hospitals, for fear of the consequence to their health? In a pure and wholesome atmosphere the chest is thoroughly expanded, and the necessary changes in the blood well effected.

In gout the very same influences prevail. Only, the tendencies of the constitution being different, the plethoric or superfluous albuminous matters show themselves in different local manifestations. The treatment, too, has various points of resemblance. Both are aided by whatever promotes the real nutrition of the body, and obviates stagnation and load in the vessels.

The opinions I have expressed above seemed to me to receive considerable confirmation from the fact discovered by Le Canu, that the placental blood contains a great increase of globules; and that the blood of animals of powerful organization and active habits also abounds in them. Seeing these things, and seeing that arterial blood contains more globules than venous, the blood of men than that of women, boys, and old people, the blood

EFFECT OF ELECTRICITY ON GLOBULES.

237

of persons of a sanguine than that of those of a phlegmatic temperament, the blood of persons well fed than that of persons badly nourished, the blood of the plethoric than that of the anæmic, I could not doubt that the opinion of Wharton Jones and Carpenter (for in this at least they concur) is correct, and that within the globules the great development of organic principles and their adaptation to the uses of the body is effected.

But while revolving these things in my mind, it seemed to me certain that the globulation of the blood was more a vital or organic than a chemical process, and that I should probably obtain an augmentation of globules by stimulating the nervous system; and an electro-magnetic influence occurred to me as the most likely means of accomplishing my object. A rabbit was accordingly thus treated; but I was completely disappointed. No matter how moderate the influence used, the breathing of the animal was excited in the highest degree, which prevented all arrest and accumulation in the globules. I obtained, however, a very important confirmation of the former experiments on the effect of oxygenation. A stream of galvanic magnetism was carried from chest to spine for half an hour, at the end of which time the blood yielded 51.2 albumen, 70-4 globules, 2.9 fibrin.

I have now gone through the whole of this sub

ject of the chemical and physical constitution of the blood, with a view to prove that rest and repletion lead necessarily to accumulation of globules; that aëration is the source of the fibrin; that by exercise the fibrin is carried forward to the tissues; that by exercise, air, and moderation in diet conjoined, constitutional disease, and particularly gout, may be avoided and cured; that without them it is vain to hope for anything more than a respite from suffering for a greater or shorter period, or even only a suspension of the most acute symptoms of disease. These observations are so consonant with the observation of all men, learned and unlearned, of every age and every country, that they will, I feel persuaded, meet with ready belief.

CHAPTER XI.

EXCITING

CAUSES SENSUALITY-MODERATE INDULGENCE-WOMEN

NOT SUBJECT TO GOUT-MEN OF BUSINESS MUCH LIABLE-CAUSE OF THIS CULLEN'S OPINION-NERVOUS INFLUENCE-MORTALITY OF DIFFERENT CLASSES-CARDINAL CORNELI'S CASE-CASE OF A MAN OF BUSINESS-THE ARGUMENT CONDENSED.

THE exciting and occasional are as valuable as the proximate causes of gout in elucidating the nature of the disease. The gouty have in all times been willing to refer the origin of their sufferings rather to hereditary descent than to any errors of their own. But the experience of physicians, in every age and in every country of the world, cannot deceive us. They pronounce with one voice that gout and full diet are united by a sure and indissoluble bond. If the opinions of physicians be set at nought, surely the universal experience of mankind may teach this important lesson. It is the malady of the sedentary, the supine, the luxurious liver, and too frequently of the student and overtaxed man of business. It is