TEE EYGIEN1C TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTION. 95 



cases in which I have seen them tried, no such specific virtues in asses' 

 milk and goats' milk as some have supposed. Tea may be taken, in 

 moderation, with perfect safety. Fresh vegetable diets should not be 

 omitted ; and fruits, especially roasted apples, are always admissible, 

 except in instances where they excite irregular action of the bowels. 

 The Iceland moss has had a great reputation, as have jellies of differ- 

 ent kinds, but these often are slow in digestion, and they have no 

 specific value. 



The question of the use of alcohol in consumption is one on which 

 scientific opinion is much divided. I have recommended alcohol under 

 some conditions of the disease, and I have shown, on the other hand, 

 that one particular kind of consumption may be produced by indul- 

 gence in alcohol. Of late years I have prescribed alcohol very sparing- 

 ly, and never in the form of the pernicious mixtures in which it is sold 

 for general use under the names and forms of alcoholic beverages. 

 When I now prescribe it, it is purely as a medicine and in the form 

 of alcohol itself properly measured, properly diluted, and properly 

 timed. In this form it comes under the head of medicinal, as distin- 

 guished from hygienic, treatment, and, I am satisfied, with much more 

 value than when it is inaccurately classified as a food or drink. 



The two indulgences, snuff-taking and tobacco-smoking, ought to be 

 strictly avoided by the consumptive. 



Reviewing what has been thus written, I would add, as a supple- 

 ment to the ten rules submitted, that, whenever distinct evidences of 

 phthisis have set in in an individual of either sex, the marriage of such 

 person is wrong, if not inexcusable ; while the marriage of two per- 

 sons, both the victims of the disease, is opposed both to reason and 

 humanity. 



Concluding Note. — The above essay " On the Hygienic Treat- 

 ment of Pulmonary Consumption " — less one or two minor revisions — 

 was written and published under the same title in 1856. 



The essay found little favor. It was considered as not practical, 

 and as conveying the ideas of a dreamer, that the fatal disease, con- 

 sumption, could be prevented generally, and treated specially by hy- 

 gienic measures. To-day, under a revival of the old animalcular specu- 

 lation as to the origin of some diseases from living forms — the entity 

 doctrine in a new dress — the conception of the hygienic treatment of 

 pulmonary consumption has been accepted in name as well as practice, 

 as if it were new in word and in deed, the height of practical learning 

 and skill. So ideas change ; and the disfavored of one generation is the 

 favored of another. But it matters not how or by whom it is borne, 

 so long as the torchlight of truth makes its way. — The Asclepiod. 



