PART I. Disease: Its Causes, Prevention, and Cure. OPENING CHAPTER DISEASE AND ITS CAUSES. UR planet with each revolution carries a huge load of human suffering, a large portion of which arises from disease. We see this enemy in the cradle, distorting the features and bedimming the eyes of innocent babes. Too often it carries its little victims to the burial-ground, bathed with the tears of mothers. We see it in youthhood, arresting the physical development of young men and young women; consigning them to premature graves, or moving them like sickly It shadows through years of hapless life. rudely grasps people in the prime of life, and hurries them away from fields of useful labor to wearisome chambers, where the mind, which has been schooled to activity, becomes a dangerous ally to the enemy by chafing and fretting in its imprisonment. It lays violent hands on our gray-haired fathers and mothers, who yesterday greeted us with the smile, animation, and elasticity of youth, but who to-day go groping about with rounded shoulders and trembling steps. At DISEASE AND ITS CAUSES. last, it arrests the physical functions, the outer shell returns to its original dust, and the inner, living body, enters the new life, where -may we hope this fearful disturber of our comfort and happiness is refused admission. The Causes of Disease. Disease of every character, except that which may be induced by poison or by accident to body or limb, originates in a derangement of the circulation of vital electricity, disturbance of the mind, or an abnormal condition of the blood. Wherever it begins, unless speedily checked, the whole system is soon convulsed in its grasp, because of the close relationship existing between the various organs of the CAPITOL OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. The above represents a horizontal section of the brain and bones of the skull: body. Those who have neglected the study of Physiology, as well as all who have merely scanned the pages of ancient and modern superficial writings, will not readily comprehend the truth of these propositions. The most illiterate men of the civilized world are aware that they have a brain (however barren of idea), and that their bodies have nerves, arteries, and veins. But few physicians, especially of the old prejudiced school, know the real offices of them. Doctors who have brandished scalpels in the dissecting-room can point out the exact locality of every nerve, vein, muscle, tendon, etc., but the means by which each performs its appropriate part, seldom awakens curiosity. Turn to a Medical Dictionary for a definition of the brain; the learned physiological lexicographer says:—“The use of the brain is to give off nine pairs of nerves and the spinal marrow, from which thirty-one pairs more proceed, through whose means the various senses are performed, and muscular motion excited." This is all very well so far as it goes, but it will not satisfy the mind of a thorough inquirer, nor illustrate the truthfulness of my first remark. The sublime powers and superior beauties of the brain are undiscovered in such a superficial definition. The object of this chapter requires a better one. Let us have a name for the brain which will convey a better understanding of its office. I propose to call it the CAPITOL OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. It stands in the same relation to the human body that Washington does to the United States. There are telegraphic wires proceeding from Washington which connect with other wires leading to every part of the Republic, and there are nerves proceeding from the brain which connect with other nerves leading to every part of the human system. These nerves are like telegraphic wires, and convey impressions to and from the brain with the velocity of lightning. They permeate the skin so extensively that a slight change in the atmosphere is quickly telegraphed to the physiological capitol. Experiment has demonstrated the fact, that the intelligence of an impression made upon the ends of the nerves in communication with the skin, is transmitted to the brain with a velocity of about one hundred and ninetyfive feet per second. Intelligence from the great toe is received through the nervous telegraph at the physiological capitol, called the brain, in only about one-thirtieth of a second later than from the ear or face. The digestion of food, by which process blood is manufactured, depends upon the electric currents sent by the brain through the pneumo-gastric telegraph, or nerve, to the stomach. The correctness DISEASE AND ITS CAUSES. of this hypothesis has been illustrated by experiments, tried by a celebrated physician in England. In these, a couple of rabbits were selected, which had been fed with the same kind and quality of food. On one of them he performed the operation of cutting the pneumogastric nerve leading to the stomach. The latter being deprived of the nervous stimulant, the animal soon died from the effects of a loaded stomach coupled with suspended digestion. The other rabbit, which was not operated on, was killed after an interval of almost twenty-six hours, and on examination it was proved that the food in his stomach was entirely digested, while in that of the former, the food remained almost as crude and undigested as when it left the masticating organs. Another experiment was made upon two more rabbits in the same manner, except that after the nerves leading to the stomach were cut, galvanism was applied in such a way as to send the current through the disconnected nerves to the seat of digestion. At the end of twenty-four hours they were both killed, when it was found that the food in the stomach of the one whose nerves had been severed, and put in connection with the galvanic battery, was nearly as well digested as that in the other, which had not been operated on. depends for the performance of its office on the electrical or nervous These experiments show that the stomach stimulus which it receives from the brain. Similar experiments to those just mentioned have been tried with reference to the heart and other organs, in all of which they ceased to perform their functions when the nerves were cut, and commenced again as soon as the galvanic fluid was applied. It is not necessary for the purposes of this essay, to demonstrate that galvanism and this nervous element provided by the brain are identical. It is evident that they are not; but they are so closely related that one will perform the office of the other, and this fact is sufficient to show that the two forces or elements are similar in their character, and that one is a modified form of the other. Animal magnetism, electro-magnetism, galvanism, and electricity, all differ a little from each other, and in employing the term electricity, chiefly, in speaking of the nervous forces, I do so because it is a term better understood by the masses. I have said the brain is the capitol of the nervous system. It may also be called the great receiving and distributing reservoir of nervoelectricity. It is largely composed of two substances, one an ashcolored matter, which, if spread out, would cover a surface of six hundred and seventy square inches; the other, a fibrous matter, firm in texture, and tubular. The ash-colored matter is the receiving, and the fibrous matter the distributing reservoir. There are in other parts of the system various smaller receiving and distributing reservoirs, composed of the same substances, but all these are under the control of the superior one located in the brain. These are called by physiologists nerve centres, and to carry out the analogy between our nervous system and the telegraphic system of our country, the nerve centres may be compared to our State capitals. The spinal cord is the great nervous trunk, or the main telegraphic wire leading from the brain, and from the brain and spinal cord proceed the motor nerves, the nerves of sensation, and the nerves of special sense. With the motor nerves the mind telegraphs to the limbs to move, and they instantly obey, for the force they carry contracts one set of muscles and expands another; for electricity, whether animal or mechanical, has the power to contract or expand any substance. By the action of the motor nerves upon the muscular system, the phenomena of animal motion are performed. Through the nerves of sensation the brain is quickly informed by the telegraph, if a wound is being inflicted upon any portion of the body, if disease is intruding itself upon any organ, or if any thing disagreeable or pleasurable is brought in contact with any part of the body. Through the nerves of special sense, the brain is informed by telegraph whether it be light, or dark-whether there be silence, or noise, etc. So we see that our great common Father, and not Professor Morse, was the inventor of telegraphy. To Morse belongs the honor, and it is indeed a great one, of having adapted this same system of intercommunication with the quickness of lightning between villages, states, and nations; a discovery which will eventually unite all mankind in common sympathy and brotherhood. Most people know that telegraphic operators supply the electricity which they send over the wires, by galvanic batteries, prepared according to the usual processes explained in our school books of Philosophy. But whence is this animo-vital electricity we have been speaking of derived? Well, I will tell you. the stomach, that ever-active laboratory. substance sets free the element commonly called electricity. The food you eat, if digestible, goes through a process of dissolution in your stomach, and as it dissolves, the electricity evolved ascends The principal source is The dissolution of any |