156

PULMONARY CONSUMPTION.

so easily digested as that of asses or mares, it may be renderedlighter, by adding it to an equal quantity of barley-water, or allow-ing it to stand for some hours, and afterwards taking off the cream.If it should, notwithstanding, prove heavy on the stomach, a smallquantity of brandy or rum, with a little sugar, may be added,which will render it both more light and nourishing.*

It is not to be wondered, that milk should for some time disa-gree with a stomach that has not been accustomed to digest anything but flesh and strong liquors, which is the case with many ofthose who fall into consumptions. We do not, however, advisethose who have been accustomed to animal food and strong liquors,to leave them off all at once. This might be dangerous. It willbe necessary for such to eat a little once a-day of the flesh of someyoung animal, or rather to use the broth made of chickens, veal,lamb, or such like. They ought likewise to drink a little winemade into negus, or diluted with twice or thrice its quantity ofwater, and to make it gradually weaker till they can leave it offaltogether.

These must be used only as preparatives to a diet consistingchiefly of shell-fish, of milk and vegetables, which the sooner thepatient can be brought to bear, the better. Rice and milk, or bai-ley and milk, boiled with a little sugar, is very proper food. Ripefruits, roasted, baked, or boiled, are likewise proper, as goose orcurrant-berry tarts, apples roasted, or boiled in milk, &c. Thejellies, conserves, and preserves, &c. of ripe subacid fruits, oughtto be eaten plentifully, as the jelly of currants, conserve of roses,preserved plums, cherries, &c.

Wholesome air, proper exercise, and a diet consisting chiefly ofthese and other vegetables, with milk, is the only course that canbe depended on in a beginning consumption. If the patient hasstrength and sufficient resolution to persist in this course, he willseldom be disappointed of a cure.

In a populous town of England,t where consumptions are verycommon, I have frequently seen consumptive patients, who hadbeen sent to the country with orders to ride and live upon milkand vegetables, return in a few months quite plump, and free fromany complaint. This indeed was not always the case, especiallywhen the disease was hereditary, or far advanced ; but it was theonly method in which success was to be expected ; where it failed,I never knew medicine succeed.

If the patient's strength and spirits flag, he must be supportedby strong broths, jellies, and such like. Some recommend shell-fish in this disorder, and with some reason, as they are nourishingand restorative.^ All the food and drink ought, however, to betaken in small quantities, lest an overcharge, of fresh chyle shouldoppress the lungs, and too much accelerate the circulation of theblood.

* In Russia, it is common for consumptive persons to migrate into Tartary, where,t>y living wholly on a fermented preparation of mares' milk, termed koumisë, they verygenerally recover even from the last stages of this disease.

t Sheftield.

ÎI have of*en known persons of a consumptive habit, where the symptoms were no■violent, reap great benefit from the use of oysters. They generally ate them raw, anddfank the juice along with them.