94 THE TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



the quality may be bad, or there may be a want of variety. Even where the food 

 is obtainable in abundance the patient may have no appetite, and may be unable 

 to eat it. We may even go a step farther, for the patient may eat his food and yet 

 from the presence of some disease or disorder of the stomach may not digest it. 

 Anaemia may result from a deficient supply of daylight. The patient becomes 

 blanched just as many vegetables do when grown in the dark. Many chronic diseases, 

 such as cancer, are attended with anaemia. It commonly occurs in people suffering 

 from ague. It is produced in the course of slow poisoning by many metals, as for 

 example, lead, mercury, arsenic, and copper. As we shall presently see, iron is the 

 great remedy for anaemia ; but iron, when taken into the system in large doses and 

 for long periods, proves a powerful agent in the production of this complaint. Blood- 

 poisoning, as the result of over-indulgence in alcohol, whether in the form of beer, 

 wine, or spirit, may give rise to anaemia, and so may excessive smoking. Over-work 

 is a very common cause, and it is said that taking excessive exercise may be attended 

 with the same result. Running up and down stairs has been found in many cases to 

 produce anaemia, probably because during the effort the chest is fixed and respiration 

 is interfered with. Working at a great elevation, or at a great depth, as in mines, 

 produces poorness of the blood, as does working in a constrained position, like a tailor 

 or cobbler. Worry, anxiety, and mental and moral disturbances have all a similar 

 effect, and so has long-continued pain, such as you suffer from in neuralgia. A well- 

 known physician, speaking of anaemia says : " The sufferers are the victims of our 

 subterraneous kitchens, and back shops, and of that atrocious domestic system which 

 deprives young women in service of open-air exercise and enjoyments peculiar to their 

 age. Secondarily a depraved appetite arises, and tea with bread-and-butter comes 

 to form their sole diet, as all healthy desire for meat soon vanishes. These devitalised 

 plants which never see the sun languish in nervous power and furnish our worst 

 cases of hysteria." 



When marked anaemia occurs in young women about the age of puberty, it is 

 often spoken of as " chlorosis." Chlorosis is commonly associated with some disturbance 

 of the menstrual function, but there is no essential difference between chlorosis and 

 anaemia. The causes by which it is produced are those to which we have already 

 referrecl Chlorosis is sometimes called the "green-sickness," from the excessive 

 pallor of the face. It is not uncommonly an accompaniment of hysteria. Young 

 women suffering from this combination often display a perverted or even depraved 

 appetite. They often fancy acids and highly-seasoned foods, and sometimes they 

 swallow and apparently relish such substances as chalk, paper, ashes, coals, plaster 

 of Paris, hair, and earth. There is generally some disturbance of the organs of 

 digestion, and not uncommonly the breath is very offensive. Menstruation is 

 absent or performed imperfectly, irregularly, and with pain, and the flow is thin 

 and watery, or mixed with " whites." The periods are not only irregular in their 

 return, but inconstant, of short duration, deficient in quantity, and pale in colour. 



Anaemia is often confounded with consumption, and many of the cases of cured 

 consumption of which one hears so much are in reality nothing but cases of anaemia. 

 We don't mean to say that consumption is not curable, but it is just as well to 

 make sure that the sufferer is really consumptive before attempting to cure that 



