CHAPTER IX.

OTHER CASES OF PESTILENCE—FAMINE—UNWHOLESOME FOOD AND DRINK.

The operation of vitiated air in the production of disease is often very much assisted by the presence of other prejudicial influences.

It has been frequently remarked that one stroke of misfortune seldom comes alone, and that observation holds with striking force in reference to the causes of disease. One cause of disease produces another, which in its turn generates another, and so on, till the tendencies to, and the excitants of, pestilence, are so strong and so numerous, that whole communities are affected, one after another.

It not unfrequently happens that the predisposing source of some of the most severe visitations of the most virulent distempers, is the want of food, which generally depends on the exorbitant prices of provisions, raised either by the arbitrary regulations of rulers, or by comparative scarcity.

The total or almost total want of food is calculated to bring about, very shortly, a mortal result, from exhaustion or from sinking of the powers of the system.

When food is not withheld altogether, but is only given in sparing quantity, in an amount insufficient for the maintenance of the body in vigour, a condition of the system is induced, in which the functions are imperfectly performed, in which the blood and the various humours become universally prone to morbid change, and in which there arises a great tendency to disease of a low or asthenic character.

If, under such privation, vitiated air be present, whether arising from men in health, but uncleanly or crowded in close apartments; from the clothes, or excretions of the sick; or from terrestrial effluvia; it will give form to disease, will act as a spark amid fuel, and will shortly convert any predisposition to sickness that may exist into reality itself.

In those suffering under scarcity of food, there is generally experienced great depression of mind, which is hurtful in itself and injurious by preventing sufficient exertions for the maintenance of cleanliness: there is an inability to procure requisites for the purpose, and when, perchance, they are obtained, there is too often too much apathy or supineness to admit of their being used.

That miserable individual who is famishing, who is so unfortunate as to hear his helpless children call for bread, which he, alas, cannot give, who himself is exhausted and sinking with want, is seldom found to be very solicitous about cleanliness.

A mother so situated will, in her misery, amid her actual sufferings, and with the dark yet immediate prospect of further hardships, forget the necessity or disregard its call; of removing impurities from her hut, of retaining the persons and clothes of her family clean—and of washing the furniture, the walls and floor of her pestilence-haunted cabin.

In such a situation, cleanliness is neglected and impurities of all kinds accumulate which emit effluvia, to add to the number of the causes of gradual death impending over a family thus situated.

Let a case be supposed in which disease makes its appearance in obedience to the summons of so many forces, and let the malady be of a low or putrid character, and the patient dangerously ill. This family is unable from depression of mind, and from that exhaustion attendant upon actual want, to give him the requisite attention and assistance, and neither the means of cure are administered, nor is a suitable diet afforded. Effluvia arise, and no means being adopted to remove them, they become highly concentrated, and prove the immediate exciting cause of disease among all around who may be prepared by the operation of other favouring influences for that consummation. The occurrence of typhus fever among the labouring classes of this country, which is observed every winter, but more especially on those occasions when provisions, the necessaries of life, are high in price, when employment is with difficulty obtained, and when the wages are low, sufficiently attests the fact that scanty food is a powerful cause of disease, and one of a widely extended range of action. It is invariably in those years when there is least correspondence between the severity or inclemency of the season, the price of provisions and the means of the labourer that typhus fever commits most havoc. I have had occasion to note the prevalence of an unusual amount of disease, and amongst other forms, that of fever, in winters following partial failures of the crops, and the most satisfactory evidence has been afforded that a large proportion of the sickness was the consequence of high prices, and consequent scanty and insufficient food.

Such great prevalence of disease can be readily accounted for, when it is known that the ordinary amount of the wage of the day labourer does not exceed nine or ten shillings per week. I have heard labourers of the most sober and frugal habits affirm, that if their whole wage were spent in the purchase of oat meal for porridge, and of bread, that there would not be more of those provisions than would barely satisfy their children and themselves.

A scanty and unwholesome diet induces a bad and acrimonious state of the fluids, and leads to many diseases, and among others, to scurvy, which was long a frightful pestilence among our sailors.

Where there exists that tendency to scrophula, which is common in this climate, the relaxing influence of a poor and scanty diet is particularly hurtful, and proves the exciting cause of that hideous disease in all its frightful forms. Scrophula is much connected with a sluggish state of certain organs called glands. These organs are found in all parts of the body, and in health vary in size from that of a pin’s head to that of a bean, but in scrophulous subjects they are found much larger, the smaller being often more than the size of a pea, and the larger being equal to a hen’s egg.

Glands are congeries of vessels in which fluids of various kinds are elaborated, and it is partly from these fluids or those from which they are formed, stagnating in their vessels, owing to want of vital action, that the swelling arises, which is always found in scrofulous subjects.

That sluggish disposition of these parts is generally connected with a languid and lax state of the general system, which is liable to be greatly increased by whatever diminishes the vigour of the body. Few circumstances are better calculated to produce that effect than insufficient food, and hence it is that those diseases whose foundation is a scrophulous taint, are so much promoted in times of scarcity, and among individuals accustomed to a liberal diet when accidentally placed on scanty fare.

Instances are known where persons have become affected with weak eyes, with tenderness, watering and disposition to ulceration in these organs, immediately upon being put on spare and poor diet, and where a liberal supply of nutritious food has proved an almost immediate cure. That affection of the eyes was a form of scrophula, and fortunate it was for them that the form in which that disease manifested itself was not more dangerous. They had much reason to be thankful that the injury was capable of cure, and was not irremediable, as it has been in many instances, where the first intimation of the bad consequences of a scanty and insufficient diet has been decided and incurable consumption of the lungs.

When the glands which assume the scrofulous action are those of the lungs, and when they become the seat of the formation of matter, pulmonary consumption is said to be produced, a disease which annually carries off a great proportion of the adult population of this country.

Consumption of the lungs, or pulmonary consumption, is a common affection among those who subsist on scanty and insufficient food, and is frequently observed with dogs and other animals whose sustenance is small and precarious. Scrophula manifests itself in other forms, not less severe and extremely loathsome—in running sores on the neck and other parts, in swellings of the joints, and in various wasting diseases of the bones and their coverings.

In the various forms which this disease assumes, the blood and the different humours of the body become unhealthy and often acrimonious. The milk of nurses who are tainted with that habit is unwholesome, and when they are made to subsist on scanty and insufficient diet, it becomes poor, less nutritious, and positively injurious—and instead of being bland and white, it often appears watery and yellowish, and is irritating and acrimonious.

Food of an unwholesome or vitiated quality is also injurious, and has on many occasions proved to be the cause of much disease. Plants as well as animals are subject to disease, and food when obtained from such sources is highly unwholesome and detrimental to health.

The flesh of animals which have laboured under disease, has, on many occasions, done much harm, and is liable to be much more injurious than flesh which is merely putrid from being too long kept. Flesh merely putrid much more seldom proves hurtful, as, long before it can be very pernicious, it becomes so offensive that it cannot be consumed. Moreover, food which has acquired a slight taint, is more easily digested, its fibres become less tense, less hard, and more easily divided and dissolved in the stomach.

But the most important injuries of the kind have arisen from the use of diseased grain. On the Continent the rye sometimes becomes diseased, and the grain throws out a fungus somewhat like the spur of a cock. Rye thus deteriorated, when used for food, has produced disease of a very serious character. Persons who partake of it suffer great pain of stomach, fiery heat in the extremities, and very violent convulsions. This spurred rye produces mortification of the extremities, of a very remarkable nature.

The late celebrated surgeon, Mr Pott, thus describes these affections. “At the extremity of one or more of the small toes, in more or less time, it passes on to the foot or ankle, and sometimes to a part of the leg, and in spite of all the aid of physic and surgery, most commonly destroys the patient. It is very unlike to the mortification from inflammation, or to that from external cold. In its severer attacks, however, the constitution seems to be generally contaminated, the mind and body become equally debilitated, there is great irritability and a tendency to convulsive action.”

Rye thus diseased produces another distemper, which partakes of the nature of typhus fever and that of plague: it is called by the French “Mal des ardens,” and is generally considered one of the worst forms of the pest. That disease is marked by the most virulent character, and has, on many occasions, committed the most fearful ravages. It commences with a sensation of burning, prostration of strength, delirium, and vehement headach; a bad form of erysipelas attacks the skin, ending in suppuration, matter forms in the armpits and groins, and these symptoms almost invariably terminate in death. There is good reason to believe that the fungus or cock-spur is the product of disease in the plant. It is about the size of a cock-spur, is coffee-coloured, and may be readily detected when the farmer is disposed to use his eyes.

In this country, wheat which has been blighted or infected with the parasitic plant called mildew; has sometimes produced very bad effects, not unlike the severe burning at stomach, and the mortification which supervene on the use of spurred rye on the Continent. Not long ago, several families living in England were nearly destroyed by their using some diseased grain, which a farmer, knowing it to be bad, had sold at a reduced price. Other plants are sometimes known to be attacked with disease, and in that state are ascertained to inflict much mischief. The potato is more particularly injurious when its quality is bad.

Plants, like animals, may be affected with disease, and may be most unwholesome, without exhibiting any very marked signs of their morbid condition.

DRINK.

Drink is as essential as food itself, to the maintenance of the health of man. Thirst is no less urgent than hunger itself, and it often happens that it must be satisfied when the calls of the appetite for food are unheard. Drink of a wholesome quality is highly salubrious, and conduces much to maintain the blood, and the various humours in a healthy condition. Water is the only beverage with which Providence has directly supplied his creatures, and is, under ordinary circumstances, the liquid of all others the best adapted to their use.

Pure water is refreshing, cooling, and dilutes the blood, which, without some diluent, would become too thick to move readily along its containing vessels, to perform aright its manifold duties, and to accomplish its numerous purposes in the animal economy. Water taken into the stomach goes to supply that very considerable part of the mass of blood which is constantly earned off in the shape of sensible and insensible perspiration, and of other secretions, and to correct the tendency in that vital fluid, to become irritating and acrimonious from the formation and accumulation of various salts.

In order that the deleterious action of some liquids may be the more readily understood, we will inquire how drink, which is taken into the stomach, is there disposed of.

One of the chief objects which is obtained from the use of drink, is the dilution and mollifying of the blood; and in order that this important purpose may be effected, it is necessary that they be brought in contact and mixed with each other.

Water, or any watery beverage, being received into the stomach, many thousand vessels open their mouths upon the walls of that organ, and imbibe the contained liquid, in virtue of a vital action which they possess. The liquid is soon sucked up, and is carried by the veins and the absorbent vessels into the general circulation, there to be mixed and incorporated with the mass of blood. It has been popularly thought, that there exists a direct communication between the stomach and the kidneys, by which the contents of the former are conveyed to the latter organs; and that supposition probably arose from the fact, that the kidneys have an immediate increase of duty after copious drinking; and that fluids having a peculiar and strong odour have been detected, discharged, very soon after their reception into the stomach.

However, there is no direct communication between these organs, and all liquids which are taken into the stomach must be passed through the general circulation before they can reach the kidneys; and thus it is worthy to be observed, that liquids which are possessed of deleterious properties, have an ample field for their operation.

It is rare that any bad effects follow the use of moderately cold water in a state of purity, and any instances in which injury has followed, may, with perfect propriety, be regarded as depending on accidental circumstances.

It sometimes happens, that water free of impurities, cannot be obtained, and that, what is highly impure is taken into the stomach. Many nations are occasionally subject to the privation of pure water, and are compelled to have recourse to the tainted waters of sluggish rivers, of almost stagnant rivulets, and putrefying lakes; and the consequence is, that their health suffers, and that the invasion of disease is much promoted.

The inhabitants of Switzerland, and of several other countries, are supplied on some occasions, with no other water than that which is obtained from snow, and the prevalence of goitre among the Swiss, has been attributed by some physicians to that circumstance.

But man is not satisfied with this excellent beverage—water—which is ever at hand, and to be obtained without a price.

While yet little advanced in the knowledge of the arts, man discovered that the various juices with which the various fruits of the earth abound, afforded, during fermentation, a liquor which possessed properties such as strongly recommended it to his use. These juices, after fermentation, prove exhilarating and intoxicating, and all the nations of the world have their respective wines or intoxicating beverages. This liquor, which is the product of fermentation, gives to these juices their peculiar character. It is called spirits of wine, is colourless, and is lighter than water.

The liquors in which that active agent resides, when taken in small quantities, quicken the circulation of the blood, render more acute the perceptions, and augment the heat of the body. When these liquors are taken more copiously, the circulation becomes violently affected, the face flushes, and the blood is sent to the head, with too great velocity, and in too great abundance.

At first the mind is stimulated, but there gradually ensue sleep, stupor, and privation of sense and motion, which may continue even unto death. Several cases, in which death took place in this way from drinking to excess, are detailed in Mr Watson’s excellent work on homicide. But when the quantity which is taken is insufficient to produce the last-mentioned effects, but is often repeated, it frequently happens that disease, more or less acute, attacks some of the more important organs of the body, as the stomach, liver, kidneys, brain, heart, and the general nervous system.

The diseases which follow the long continued excessive use of liquors, containing spirits of wine, vary in their nature, but, on the whole, they prove highly dangerous, interfere with the performance of some of the most important functions, and often lead directly to a mortal result.

Where death is not the immediate consequence of the diseased condition of these organs, symptoms arise which make the course of life run bitterly along, the general system breaks up, the miserable victim presents in vivid colours, the signs of premature decay, the accession of acute and mortal sickness is greatly favoured, and the intellectual faculties are impaired.

Many melancholy instances are known of soldiers at the sacking of conquered towns, who, indulging in wine and other spirituous liquors to great excess, have died in vast numbers, both immediately, and more slowly, through the operation of disease, which had been induced by too deep potations, by too long protracted carousing, and by that exposure to those influences favourable to the developement of disease, to which excess never fails to lead.

“Some thousands of soldiers covered the great square and the adjoining streets (of Moscow), but they lay extended and stiff in front of the magazines of brandy which they had broken open, and from which they had drawn death, expecting to derive from them life.”[8]

Footnote 8:

Segur’s Expedition to Russia.

The habit of indulging to excess in spirituous liquors, when it does not directly induce pestilence, assuredly lays those who are its victims, particularly open to its invasion, and is, therefore, entitled to be regarded as a very important agent in the great tragedy of life which is enacting.