Nice and Its Climate, with Notices of the Coast from Hyeres to Genoa, and Abservations on Pulmon. Disease

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1855. Excerpt: ... APPENDIX. Observations on some prevalent causes of pulmonary consumption, and on the influence of climate in that disease. In order properly to estimate the degree of influence which climate is calculated to exert in the prevention and removal of pulmonary consumption, it 'will be necessary to take a brief survey of some of the chief causes which induce a predisposition to the disease; for it is only by counteracting the operation of these causes, and by availing ourselves of the most efficient means of rectifying the consequent morbid condition of the system, before the supervention of organic change to any considerable extent, that satisfactory results are likely to ensue from the adoption of any preventive or remedial measures. It is because this principle of rectifying the disordered state of the constitution, upon which the deposition o tubercle depends in most cases, has been hitherto but little attended to, that so little success has attended the efforts of medical practitioners in the treatment of this disease. If, justly remarks Sir James Clark, the labour and ingenuity which have been misapplied in fruitless attempts to cure an irremediable condition of the lungs, had been rightly directed to the investigation of the causes and nature of tuberculous disease, the subject of our inquiry would have been regarded in a very different light from what it is at the present period. It is most certain, that unless we enter into the subject in its fullest extent, we shall do little that will prove effectual in diminishing the frequency, or reducing the mortality, of this prevalent and most destructive malady. The cicatrices and tuberculous deposits found in the lungs of persons who have died of other diseases, and then umerous instances on record, of ...