Paul Niemeyer

“ But, since we cannot send all the sick to the south, we must devise some substitute at home, the benefits of which may be enjoyed even by the poorest. Then, too, when we consider that the majority of those who have spent the winter in a southern clime return as—embalmed corpses, because it is only when it is too late that people make up their minds to make the costly voyage, there is reason to expect better results from timely recourse at home to "air-cure." With the means of treatment at hand, disease might be nipped in the bud, and lung-complaints in general would be rarer. ”

“ On the other hand, we must condemn the heedlessness of those who, so long as danger is not proximate, fear the expenditure of time and money. These same people, when hæmorrhage suddenly appears, quite lose their heads, adopt the most preposterous methods, whose only result is to cause new hæmorrhages, and to produce a regular case of consumption: whereas many of the old physicians recommend horseback exercise as the best cure for those suffering from hæmorrhage of the lungs, we now often see patients shut up in a hot, dusty room, not allowed to talk, and almost forbidden to breathe. ”

“ It has long been held that closed windows are the principal cause of consumption. I would make the proposition more general, by substituting "defective ventilation" for "closed windows." It is very pleasant to be sheltered by four walls against wind, rain, and cold; but, now that we employ window-glass, coal for heating, and iron stoves, and rent is becoming higher, while rooms, especially sleeping-rooms, are growing smaller, we have all the greater reason to keep open ventilating apertures, since our lungs cannot live with less than six hundred cubic feet of fresh, pure air per hour. ”

“ Every adult person clears his throat in the morning. One who has been sitting for a long time must cough when he goes out-of-doors. Bodily movement is the best "solvent" for a cough. When one's life is sedentary, mucus collects first of all in the apices of the lungs, and it is more difficultly broken up there by bodily movement, because the apices are the uppermost parts of the lung, and the impetus of the cough must drive the expectorated mucus around the corners of the lung. The apices are a veritable receptacle for mucus, which, if not removed, dries up, grows hard, and causes ulceration. ”

“ That our children were intended by Nature to live in fresh, open air, and that the old wives' regimen of keeping warm, living in-doors, and of warm drinks, is the cause of the fearful mortality of young children, is a truth that was not unknown one hundred years ago, but which must still be repeated over and over again. ”

“ This feeling of weariness grows steadily worse. "Fatigue-blood" accumulates in the muscles as a result of drinking wine and beer; even simply bending the body causes inconvenience; one feels quite unstrung and wants to recline on a lounge or a bed, whereas what he ought to do is to take a brisk run in the open air, or a little exercise in a gymnasium. ”

“ A hot bath, a cold pack, or a good, lively walk, will work wonders in "loosening" a hard cough. At first, it is true, the patient will cough harder than ever; but this effect is not due to the "cold wind," but to the fact that the accumulated mucus, once started, is expelled en masse. The oftener the patient resorts to the bath, to the pack, and to walking, the less frequent are the fits of coughing, and the freer and easier does he breathe. ”

“ In six months he was free from his cough, appeared to be well nourished, and no longer had any fear of taking cold.
If the reader will dispassionately compare these two cases, he will agree with me that the first patient, who had never had hæmorrhage, fell a victim to the action of foul air, while H——used to say, "I must give to my diseased lungs, above all things, fresh air, as the prime necessary of life." Animals never take cold, even in winter; therefore among men it must be a result of wrong habits if air does any harm. ”

“ In close, crowded, heated rooms, the patient suffering from lung-complaint respires consumptively. In winter artificial heat may be employed, but the window must be opened above, and thus we have at once both warmth and ventilation. In the city night-air is always wholesomer than day-air, being both purer and stiller. ”

“ That this is possible, the reader will see from the following analysis of the means of cure:
1. Lung-Ventilation.—The patient must with scrupulous conscientiousness insist on breathing fresh, pure air, and must remember that the air of closed rooms is always more or less bad, impure. No man, however uncleanly, would drink muddy, dirty water. Unfortunately, for detecting impurities of air, the only organ we have is the nose, and in most persons the nose is of so obtuse a sensibility that it is of no service. ”

“ The person whose lungs are affected must once for all give up dancing, for dancing as now practised is not "motion," but only destruction of the pulmonary apices by dust and vapor, fatigue of the body through want of sleep and privation of fresh air. ”

“ He should consider that, while it is a misfortune that the pulmonary apices are from their position exposed to disease, we nevertheless have plenty of lung-cells which can be made to do duty in place of them. Still, if these are not daily strengthened by careful treatment, they are in danger of being infected by the others, and of becoming diseased like them. By timely and continuous exercise, it is possible to restore even the diseased cells, and to cure the consumption, or at least to stay its further progress. ”

“ My essay cannot exhaust all the topics named in its title: the most it can do is to awaken attention, free the reader from certain erroneous ideas, and lead him to believe that the simplest remedy is always the most natural and the best. ”

“ The apices, furthermore, are regular dust and gas traps, especially the right apex, which usually is the first to be affected by consumption, because the air-passage leading to it is wider and less crooked than that leading to the left apex. All impurities inhaled into the lungs, and especially all dust, first make their way to the apices, and there settle, unless they are kept in motion by bodily exercise. Elimination, too, is more difficult in the apices than in the inferior lobes. ”

“ We know that gold-fishes quickly perish when fresh water is not provided for them; and when we were boys we used to consider it cruelty to animals if we made no openings for ventilation in the boxes in which we kept cockchafers. ”

“ Heating, too, and not cold, far less "trouble with teeth," is to blame when the first-born child of inexperienced young married people becomes feverish, or has a cough, and these symptoms are only aggravated when the innocent victim is treated with "teas" and mixtures, kept in an overheated room, and loaded down with bedclothes. ”

“ With its millions of pores, the skin is on the one side the main sewer for carrying away superfluous fluids, and on the other it is the principal factor in cooling the body, in colds, in overheating, and in fevers. We will now consider skin-ventilation from this point of view under the two heads of—a. Elimination of fluids; b. Reduction of temperature:
a. Elimination of Fluids.—Like the external skin, the inner skin, the mucous membrane, exudes moisture, sweats. The mucous membranes, having no covering, are always moist. The mucous membrane of the lungs exhales watery vapor. ”

“ Stone-cutters are not assured by life insurance companies, because it is known that the stone-dust settles in their lungs, undermining them, producing ulcerations and reducing the average life of the men to thirty-six years. ”

“ They want a son to complete his schooling as early as possible, and to go to earning money. But what is the gain if the young life, after a few years, ends its earthly career? Better, therefore, that a year or two should pass without remunerative employment, while in the mean time care is taken of the bodily health and strength, the affected lungs are invigorated, and the spirits are renewed. ”

“ In coughing, the latter are aided by the abdominal pressure; while the apices, on the contrary, have to depend on their own contractility, which is weaker in proportion as they have been out of exercise, or as their cell-walls have grown together. Heavy clothing, which, like the yoke for carrying water, bears on the collar-bone, diminishes the power of respiration in the apices; a modern winter-overcoat weighs as much as eight or nine pounds. ”

“ In the first place, it accompanies inflammation of the lungs, unless the patient, while recovering, is permitted to breathe plenty of pure air. But it also makes its appearance in typhus, diabetes, and meningitis, when the patient is kept for a long time in a close room. So, too, delicate persons—those supposed to tend toward consumption—will all the sooner become indeed "tuberculosed," the more they are coddled, protected against cold, and treated with warm drinks and so-called "invigorants". ”

“ More rational opinions are gradually making their way, and, in one particular at least, a beginning is being made of a revolution, namely, the system of treatment followed in "climatic" sanitariums, and establishments for the cure of disease by air, difference of elevation, etc. ”

“ He must frequently take such deep inspirations in the open air.
If the lungs do not become free, let him introduce into them—not into the stomach—something to act on the dry mucous membrane—as the vapor of water or of camomile-tea.
If the cough is caused rather by a "scratchy" feeling in the throat, if it is spasmodic, let him swallow or gargle some substance that will quiet the nerves. Cold water is best—in summer ice-water ”

“ Reduction of Temperature.—The body's temperature is normal when in the armpit it is about 95° Fahr. Food and drink are stimulants, and the skin is the radiating surface which gives off the surplus heat. If this elimination is not sufficiently active, the body becomes overheated, and this manifests itself by shivering. Overheating is the result when one eats and drinks much, at the same time parting with but little heat. ”

“ Whether one takes his exercise at home or abroad, makes no difference. They whose lungs are affected would do well to climb hill-sides, for in such exercise the apices of the lungs are most called into play; in climbing the hands may rest on the hips. Muscle-exercise is not to be separated from lung-exercise. If bodily movement be neglected, deleterious fluids accumulate, which. ”

“ That pulmonary consumption is only an acquired disease we know from the fact that it first appears in the apices of the lungs—a portion of the organ which is not affected by hereditary pathological processes. ”

“ The proprietors of such places, it is true, speak of the "specific" virtues of their climate; but, inasmuch as chemistry shows that atmospheric air all over the earth has the same constitution, the specific virtue must reside in the special purity of the air—a thing wanting in cities, but found in all villages, provided they do not possess large factories. ”

“ On expressing to this sun-bronzed young man my regret that, in this self-styled "age of intelligence," the fear of colds and of draughts should be steadily increasing, and that it should really be producing the very effects it is meant to guard us against, namely, coughs and colds, he fully agreed with me, but took credit to himself for having risen above such notions. "We farmers," said he, "no longer believe that rust in grain comes from cold ”