Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER LXIV. MUSCULAR EXERCISE.--MENTAL WORK.--REST AND SLEEP. MUSCULAR EXERCISE AS A PROPHYLACTIC AND AS A CURE. The value of muscular exertion for the prevention and for the relief of gout was recognised by some of the earliest physicians known to history. Sydenham ascribes to its neglect a large share in the production of the affection: 'Add to this the intermission or sudden abandonment of those exercises to which from their youth upwards they have been accustomed. Whilst these were kept up the blood was invigorated, and the tone of the body rendered firm and steady. When, however, they were dropped, the animal spirits gave way, the frame lost tone, and the assimilation became imperfect. Hence the recrementitious portion of the juices of the body, which had hitherto been cleared off by the exercise in question, accumulated in the vessels and supplied the germ of the disease.' His statements as to the curative value of exercise, even in tophaceous gout, are no less explicit: 'This is converted into a substance of the kind in question in the heat and pain of the joint; and it increases day by day, converting into its own proper substance both the skin and flesh. The deposit now lies bare, and it may be picked out. It has been compared to crab's eyes, chalk, and other similar matters. Now, this may be guarded against by daily exercise, whereby we obtain the due diffusion over the whole body of the humours that generate gout, instead of their accumulation in any particular part of it by preference. I have found in my own person that long and daily exercise not only stops the generation of chalkstones, but even dissolves old and hard ones already formed, provided only that they have not gone so far as to have converted the outer skin...