APOPLEXY. 709 



To effect this, certain regulations in eating and drinking are far 

 better preventives than any medicine, or even occasional bleedings. 

 The latter method is particularly unsafe. After bleeding from the 

 arm, new blood is often made more rapidly than under other circum- 

 stances, and so may become, before a person is well aware of it, very 

 abundant, with a dangerous pressure on the weak vessels. The sub- 

 ject of such a practice is very apt to rely on the abstraction of blood 

 for safety, and take no care otherwise of himself. Besides, he has no 

 accurate means of knowing when the pressure of the blood is becom- 

 ing dangerously great. The periodical bleeding from piles is a very 

 different matter. They often act as a safety-valve to the high pressure 

 from within, and regulate themselves on mechanical principles. Full- 

 blooded persons, past middle life, and with a ])redisposition to apoplexy, 

 should never try to remove such a safety-valve. 



As soon as old age puts a decided check on the amount of daily 

 exercise, it is time to put a decided check on the amount of food daily 

 consumed. If the supply of new matter is greater than the waste of 

 the old, an accumulation of surplus blood must be the result. The 

 principle is an important one, yet it is little known and less practised. 

 Men well past middle life, who do not exercise half as much as in their 

 younger years, often eat as freely of highly-nutritious food as they 

 ever did. Such a course is very dangerous. The tension on the 

 vascular system must not be increased, but diminished, if the risk of 

 an apoplectic stroke would be avoided. 



The kind of food best adapted to keep down superfluous blood is 

 the vegetable. Animal food makes blood with dangerous rapidity, 

 nearly all its substance dissolving for this purpose in the stomach. 

 Laboring-men, however, may eat of animal food in moderation, as the 

 exercise of their muscles wastes their substance largely, requiring a 

 good deal of blood to make up for the wear. 



The amount of vegetable food should not be so great as in middle 

 life. The true rule is, not to eat to entire satiety. Even those of 

 younger years and sedentary habits will feel lighter and better in 

 every way by leaving the table a little hungry. 



All strong liquors are unsuited to those with an apoplectic ten- 

 dency. One of their prominent effects, as we have seen, is to cause a 

 degeneration in the coating of the blood-vessels, and another is to 

 move more blood than ordinary upon the brain. 



