174 CONDITIONS REQUIRED FOR 



from defective food, or impaired digestion, the blood 

 is impoverished in quality and rendered unfit for 

 adequate nutrition, the lungs speedily suffer, and 

 that often to a fatal extent. So certain is this fact, 

 that, in the lower animals, tubercles (the cause of 

 incurable consumption) can be produced in the lungs 

 to almost any extent^ by withholding a sufficiency of 

 nourishing food. The same -circumstances operate 

 to a lamentable extent among the poorly fed popu- 

 lation of our manufacturing towns ; whereas it is pro- 

 verbial that butchers, a class of men who eat 

 animal food twice or thrice a day, and live much in 

 the open air, are almost exempt from pulmonary 

 consumption. Among the higher classes, again, the 

 blood is impoverished, and the lungs are injured, not 

 from want of food, but from want of the power of ade- 

 quately digesting it ; and hence we find in every 

 treatise on consumption, a section devoted espe- 

 cially to " dyspeptic phthisis," as it is called, or sim- 

 ply " consumption from bad digestion." The late 

 hours, heavy meals, and deficient exercise which 

 are so generally complained of, but still so regularly 

 adhered to in society, are the chief sources of the 

 evils to which we are now alluding. 



THIRDLY. The free and easy expansion of the 

 chest is obviously indispensable to the full play and 

 dilatation of the lungs : whatever impedes it, either 

 in dress or in position, is prejudicial to health ; and, 

 on the other hand, whatever favours the free ex- 

 pansion of the chest equally promotes the healthy 

 fulfilment of the respiratory functions. Stays, cor- 

 sets, and tight waist-bands operate most injuriously, 

 by compressing the thoracic cavity and impeding 

 the due dilatation of the lungs ; and, in many in- 

 stances, they give rise to consumption. I have seen 

 one case, in which the liver was actually indented 

 by the excessive pressure, and long continued bad 

 health and ultimately death were the results. In 

 allusion to this subject, Mr. Thackrah mentions, 



