Congestion

“ When one observes the countless impediments that embarrass the movement of twentieth-century traffic through the eighteenth century streets of some eastern cities one wonders how long it will be, with the assured further increase in traffic, before complete congestion will result. ”

“ Congestion is an unnatural accumulation of blood in a part. Excessive accumulation of blood may be normal, as in blushing or in the red face which temporarily follows a violent muscular effort, or, as in the stomach or liver during digestion, or in the lungs after severe work, from which, in the latter case, it is shortly relieved by a little rapid breathing. The term congestion, however, usually indicates a morbid condition, with more or less lasting effects. Congestion is active or passive. ”

“ Passive congestion due to impeded return circulation is of secondary interest, as the primary disease, be it a pertussis or a laryngeal, cardiac, pulmonary, or surgical condition, will constitute the main object of recognition and management. Certain quasi-physiological acts, as coughing, hurried breathing, holding the breath while straining at stool, and placing the head in a dependent position while acting in the direction of passive hyperæmia, are to be considered in connection with the active forms of congestion which they may momentarily aggravate. ”

“ A chronic pathological congestion may, it is true, have secondary consequences, but the primary congestions which we have been considering follow the activity of the brain-cells by an adaptive reflex vaso-motor mechanism doubtless as elaborate as that which harmonizes blood-supply with cell-action in any muscle or gland. ”

“ It is this tendency to congestion which makes it so difficult to stand absolutely motionless for any length of time. The red corpuscles, being the heavier, occupy the axis, and the white corpuscles the peripheral layer of the capillary stream. ”

“ Capillary congestion is a common cause in all these disorders, and anything that will produce this condition will cause, or at least augment catarrh, hay fever, asthma, influenza, and colds. As overeating is the primary cause of congestion throughout the capillary system, it, rather than exposure, is the most common cause of all these disorders. ”

“ In this respect, those who open dead bodies, and examine the state of the lungs, should carefully distinguish the congestion that arises from the disease, from that which may be perhaps the effect of the interruption of the circulation in the last moments. ”

“ CONGESTION AND ANAEMIA OF THE BRAIN.—In congestion of the brain, the blood-vessels distributed to the nerve tissue become engorged with blood. It may be either active or passive.
The cause of anaemia of the brain is an insufficient blood supply. This may be due to an abundant haemorrhage and cardiac weakness caused by shock or organic heart disease.
The causes of congestion of the brain are faulty methods of care and feeding. It sometimes occurs when horses are shipped in poorly ventilated cars, or kept in close stables. Climatic changes, or changing the stable and feed, may cause it. ”

“ When a quantity of food, greater than the body can use, is taken and ingested into the circulation, the excess is carried to the lungs in the same manner as above described, and the same form of congestion and elimination takes place ”

“ Rest in bed, and as a diet use only milk; if the congestion is bad, use dry cupping over the kidneys and inject large quantities of hot normal salt solution in the bowels. Hot fomentations of wormwood or smartweed are of benefit. If you can get the patient into a sweat the congestion will be somewhat relieved by it. ”

“ Another condition which contributes to pulmonary congestion is a full stomach. The plentitude of the abdominal organs leads to compression of the lungs and hampered circulation, and when to this is added over-exertion and exhaustion acute congestion is speedily induced. ”

“ We were on a bus whose "route" terminated some five miles from home, which we proposed to reach by a tram, and, the hour being late, it was our chances of catching a car that were worrying Mary.
"Never get flurried," I went on. "If people would only go ahead calmly and steadily.... What causes half our traffic congestion? Flurry. What makes it so difficult to move quickly in the streets? Flurry. What is it clogs the wheels of progress everywhere?" ”

“ It is matter for discussion how inflammatory congestion is brought about by nervous action. It may be doubted whether active congestion could alone give rise to it, though it is by no means inconceivable that the excessive supply of the nutrient fluid might in time exhaust the tissues by over-stimulation, and so bring about more or less of that impairment of vital energy which we have seen reason to regard as the essential cause of the blood-corpuscles lagging behind the liquor sanguinis. ”

“ The functions in the congested organ are often seriously interfered with, secretions appearing in excess or entirely altered. When the congestion lasts it may cause hypertrophy, induration or hyperplasia, these are however rather sequels than lesions of the condition. Simple congestion is usually quite transient, and if prolonged, often merges into inflammation. ”

“ The congestion and the waste of time, brought about at large centres of cross-traffic by the waiting of east and west for north and south and the returning of the compliment which goes on all day long, is enormous. ”

“ Active congestion, or arterial dilatation with consequent free flow of blood through the capillaries, is an early and prominent symptom of inflammation of a vascular part in man. Unlike the morbid condition which is produced by the application of irritants to the frog s web, it is brought about indirectly through the nervous system. ”

“ Relatively little serious damage was done, but the fact that traffic had often to be or worked under difficulties, the reduced lighting generally maintained throughout the more vulnerable parts of the country, and the congestion which followed each cessation of traffic constituted serious hindrances to railway working. ”

“ He now likes his answers to be in human terms. He takes readily to such conceptions as congestion as the cause for subways and elevated trains; the desire for speed as the cause of change in transportation; the dependence of man on other living things,—all of which I have made the bases of stories. To the children the material in “The Subway Car,” “Speed,” “Silly Will,” is familiar; the relationships in which it appears are new. ”

“ All sorts of straining or forcing also involve this same evil, known to medical men as congestion. The sore throats so common with those who force, owing to methods essentially wrong, or simply to the too vigorous use of methods correct in themselves, are to be traced to the above—i.e., to this congestion, which is bad, and bad only. ”

“ If the overloaded stomach has turned into a mild indigestion, the increase of blood into congestion, etc., then we are very near disease, but the boundary between that and the other condition can not be determined. ”

“ Where the tonicity of the pulmonary vessels has been impaired by sickness, age, or other debilitating influences, passive congestion of the lungs is very likely to ensue if the heart become weakened; and as the effect of gravity will aid in determining the stasis of the blood, the resulting congestion is in life most marked in the lower and posterior regions of the lungs, where the changes are chiefly found after death. ”

“ To Excite Activity.—Many organs often become torpid or inactive, as the skin and liver, especially. Sometimes the blood-vessels of an organ become relaxed and inactive, passive congestion resulting. No remedy will so readily induce a return of activity to the affected parts 82as alternate hot and cold applications, continued for some minutes, fifteen to thirty or more. ”

“ It should first be considered that every chill necessarily implies a condition of congestion in some part of the system. The blood driven from the surface and extremities must be accounted for elsewhere ”

“ This local rise of temperature, he considers, is from hyperæmia and cell-production, caused by the traumatism from the needle added to the already-existing hyperæmia. This excessive congestion, caused by the accumulation of blood occurring when a large quantity of fluid is rapidly withdrawn, produces the syncope, pulmonary congestion, consecutive albuminous expectoration, the pain, and the oppression amounting sometimes to suffocation, and occasionally ending in death. ”

“ Under these circumstances, a person of fairly good constitution may plunge into the water with impunity, even with benefit. But, if the body be already cooling by sweating, rapid abstraction of heat from the surface may cause internal congestion, never unattended with danger. ”

“ By various abuses, among which the habitual use of such agents as green tea is one, this fluid may be affected as to its quality, but it is more frequently disturbed as to equilibrium. This fluid being that which we have in common with spirits, a congestion found upon the masses of brain or nerve, connected with the interior sense, forms a surface unduly exposed, on which disembodied spirits may operate: communication is thus more or less effectually established. ”

“ In the newer parts of the city more width is now being given to streets as they are from time to time laid out, but the congestion of the nucleus is a serious obstacle to rapid locomotion, which is otherwise well provided for by numerous electric car lines. ”

“ It is certain, that when the circulation in the grey matter of the convolutions is retarded by congestion, or accelerated by unwonted stimulation, there is a corresponding state of stupor or mental activity, amounting even to delirium, produced ”

“ Rich feed and temporary idleness may cause morbid congestion. Other causes are: ptomaines and toxins in spoiled food, hepatic irritants, damp, hot, tropical climates, warm, damp, buildings, overfeeding, dilated right heart, insufficiency of tricuspid valve, pulmonary emphysema or congestion. Absence of valve between the right heart and hepatic veins, slow hepatic circulation, dilatability of hepatic vascular system, compression of lung by false membranes, œdema, hepatization, infarction, hydrothorax. ”

“ In primitive societies the transport of goods is effected by men and women carrying them; in civilized societies by the aid of horses and camels, and wagons drawn by oxen; till finally these are insufficient, and railways are created, whose power of transport transcends the earlier methods, as the breathing of a mammal transcends the respiration of a mollusc. Breathing is the special function of an organ—the lungs (or more strictly, the thoracic apparatus) —as Railway Transport is a special social function. ”

“ Personal experience teaches us this, as is manifest in the recognized necessity of ventilation in our buildings—the wholesome influences of fresh air, and the noxious qualities of "an atmosphere that has in circulation." Hence, continual mixing up of particles in the atmosphere being required of the winds in their circuits, is it possible for the human mind to conceive of the appointment of "circuits" for them (§ 216) which are so admirably designed and exquisitely adapted to the purpose as are those which this view suggests? ”

“ As soon as the little boats load up at the Lung Station, off they sail on this wonderful stream, carrying their freight to the Muscle Country, the Skin Country or the Gland Country. When the boats reach one of these countries, they unload and the little men of these countries (or cells) take the freight and put it just where it is needed. The freight is called oxygen. The Lung Station is filled with it every time a person takes a good breath of pure fresh air. ”

“ In proportion as digestion and absorption of food become specialized and restricted to certain parts, circulation becomes more important in order to convey that food to the tissues, and carry from the tissues the worn-out material. To maintain the character of the fluid, it must itself undergo constant change, and hence the excretory processes—respiration being the most urgent—which increase the necessity for movement of the fluid. Circulation of the nutritive fluid is the immediate function for upbuilding and repairing the body. ”

“ What a smell comes from the car as the door is opened! and unless I wish to incur the displeasure, or provoke the indignation, of almost every passenger, by opening a window, I am obliged to sit in that foul, offensive atmosphere, and breathe the poisonous exhalations from my own lungs, and that from dozens of others, some of them, it may be, badly diseased, (most persons' lungs are diseased in this country, from breathing foul air, and many other diseases besides consumption are produced thereby.) ”

“ Exactly the same amount of water, to the ounce, or even the teaspoonful, that is poured into the boiler of an engine, is given off through its funnel and escape-pipes in the form of steam; and precisely the same amount of water which we pour into our stomachs will reappear on the surface of the body again in the form of the vapor from the lungs, the perspiration from the skin, and the water from the kidneys. It goes completely through the engine, or the body, enables the one to work and the other to live, and yet comes out unchanged. ”

“ Inquire of every individual, in office, store, dwelling or factory, if he knows whether he had pure air to breathe all day, or whether he can tell you, with any degree of accuracy, how pure the air was in the room he occupied for any hour of that day.
I fully believe there is not one in ten—no, not one in a hundred—of the most intelligent men in that entire street, doctor, lawyer, architect, or any other, that can give you an accurate account of the condition of the air breathed during any one hour of the day. ”

“ Before entering on the details of ventilation, we must consider the physical causes at work which tend to purify the air, apart from all artificial contrivances. These are three in number—namely, diffusion, winds, and differences of temperature of masses of air.
(1) Diffusion causes the rapid mixture of gases placed together. Every gas diffuses at a certain rate—namely, inversely as the square root of its density. In any room which is not air-tight, diffusion is constantly occurring, air passing in and out at every possible point. ”