Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/102

90 As soon as the patient has risen, he should at once leave his bedroom; and, if the morning be fine, he should go into the open air. On this point Mr.Bodington, in a short essay "On the Treatment and Cure of Pulmonary Consumption," published in 1840, dwells with great force. "The profuse nocturnal perspirations are soon subdued," says Mr. Bodington, "by this method of treatment, and the debility they occasion avoided. The skin assumes a healthier action in proportion to the extent of exposure to the external atmosphere, particularly to the morning air."

In large towns the practicability of this last suggestion is less than in the country; but, even in London life, an early morning walk should be made a matter of strict business by the consumptive. On a fine summer morning, between four and five o'clock, a walk through the streets and squares of London is, indeed, a treat which few Londoners understand. The air is free of smoke; the thoroughfares are royal unimpeded highways; and, while the great population sleeps, the magnitude of its residence is best seen and understood.

The Occupation of the Consumptive Patient should be suspended if it is in-door or sedentary; but a certain Amount of Outdoor Occupation may he advantayeous.—This rule is often difficult to carry out. At the same time it is second to none in importance, as there is, in a word, no exciting cause of consumption so general as indoor occupation. I remarked that about two out of every three patients with consumption, who presented themselves before me at the Royal Infirmary, were employed in some in-door business. This was confirmed accurately by reference to the Infirmary books, the figures of which were very carefully analyzed for me by Mr.Pring, a student and assistant at the institution.

Out of five hundred and fifteen cases of consumption, not less than 68'34 per cent, or rather more than two thirds, were persons following in-door occupations. Possibly the percentage was even higher, for all who called themselves laborers were presumed to be out-door workers. Among the in-door occupations which presented the largest number of cases in this list, boot- and shoe-makers ranked first; needlewomen, second; watch- and clock-makers, third; domestic servants, fourth; painters, fifth; tailors, sixth; printers, of whom the majority were compositors, seventh; bookbinders, eighth; French polishers, ninth; cigar-makers, tenth; writers, eleventh; smiths, twelfth; tinmen, thirteenth; and cabinet-makers, fourteenth. There were, altogether, in the list one hundred and forty trades specified, but the above-named fourteen yielded rather more than forty-four and a half per cent of the whole.

In the case of parents having children of a consumptive tendency, the greatest care should be taken to obtain for them out-door employment. But here a serious delusion commonly comes into play. If the child is weakly, the anxious parent urges that it is unfit for hard labor and for out-door vicissitudes; so it is sent to a place where it will not