.N i M I "1 VMS OF DISEASES, 9 



Causes. — The causes of colic are various. It may arise from cold, from 

 flatulence, from mechanical obstruction, from acrid matters taken into the 

 stomach, from accumulation of faeces after long costiveness; it may also arise 

 from passions of the mind. It is distinguished from inflammation of the 

 bowels by the pain at times disappearing, by the absence of fever, and by pres- 

 sure relieving the pain. Sometimes, however, long continued spasms induce 

 Inflammation. Remedy, pages 41, 46, 127, 129, 197, 230, 277. 



CONSTIPATION OR COSTIVENESS.— The usual frequency of 

 evacuating the bowels for persons in good health is once in twenty-four hours. 

 The constitutions of different people vary in this respect; some having two or 

 three motions in a day without any inconvenience or ill health; others not hav- 

 ing above one or two in a week. When a person has habitually fewer motions 

 than the generality of healthy people, he is said to be of a costive habit or con- 

 stipated; and when he has at any time fewer than his ordinary rate, and when 

 the faeces are hard, dry, and voided with diflSculty, he said to be costive or 

 constipated. 



Causes. — Independently of medicine, it is not very easy to specify any diet 

 or mode of living that universally predisposes to costiveness. Many articles 

 have been blamed, and yet have been used by thousands without producing 

 that effect. Rice in various modes of cookery; the finer kinds of bread; roast 

 meat, eaten without a due proportion of vegetables; cheese; port and other dry 

 wines; and indolent and sedentary life; and a sea voyage, are all known to 

 occasion costiveness in certain individuals. In some infants this state is consti- 

 tutional; and for some time, at least, appears to do them little harm. It is very 

 apt to occur in children, as their volatility and playfulness cause them often to 

 disregard the calls of nature, till a great and dangerous mass of feculent matter 

 is accumulated in their bowels. The indolent and sedentary lives of females 

 predisposes them much to costiveness. The structure of their pelvis also 

 allows a larger mass to accumulate without inconvenience, from which circum- 

 stance the faeces are deprived of almost all their fluid parts, and the remainder 

 becomes dry, hard, and difficult to be voided. Persons ot the melancholic 

 temperament; also those who are advanced in life, and those who take little 

 exercise, are liable to become costive. Remedy, pages 46, 47, 135, 136, 

 280. 



CONSUMPTION.— This disease is probably the greatest existing 

 scourge of the human race, at least in the northern and middle latitudes. It 

 is not deviating far from the truth to say that it causes about one-sixth or one- 

 seventh of all the deaths north of the tropics. The duration of the disease is 

 exceedingly variable. While some cases run their course to a fatal termination 

 in less than a month, others have been known to continue thirty or forty years. 

 The greater number of cases, as a rule, terminate in from one to two vears. It 

 is pre-eminently a hereditary disease. 



Symptoms. — The earliest symptom of consumption that usually manifests 

 Itself is a short, dry cough, exciting no particular attention, being attributed 

 to a slight cold. It, however, continues, and after a time increases in frequency. 

 The breathing is more easily hurried by bodily motion, and the pulse becomes 



