Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-12-01

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Roman gourmand. That race is not extinct
The worlds markets are taxed and the tables
groan under an exuberance which would have
astonished the Roman debauchee; and these
| JaoleS are sought by men who are recognized
| gentlemen. IL they were not known as gentle
men the outside world would call them glut-
| tons Money and markets and cooks and rich
| condiments pander to their orgies in public res
taurants and gilded saloons Lucullus
habits have seized upon this continent and
| foreign writer's brand us as we deserve May
| we not erase the brandt May not sanitarians
| put down dyspepsia and gout among prevent
| aole olseaSesI PROFESSIONALLY If any diseases
| are preYentible by hygenic usage, these two,
IN ali sclentlhc and IN all common sense view,
| must take high rank on the list.
There is another aspect of this question
Whlch wish 20 emphasize before this Health
Whatever organ may be involved. il the NAL
| ady is at all grave, we all look to a good di-
/ gestion for hope. Thus the stomach becomes
the best therapeutic agent we have, while all
| other organs are in their place supreme. It
| is to the digestive functions that we look for
| continued and healthful action.
Take a case of phthisis-pulmonary con-
| sumption You do not medicate the lungs; all
| your remedies and your regimen are addressed
| TO the stomach Suppose it revolts. What is
| your oil and whisky and beef worth If the
stomach fails to furnish the building material
| in such shape that the lacteals take it up and
/ the organism appropriates it? With all the
| two thousand drugs of the pharmacopea and
| all the skill of the most accomplished doctor,
| your case of phthisis goes steadily down where
| the digestive powers have failed. Tubercular
consumption is so intimately associated with
/ the status of the stomach that it would not be
| far wrong to reduce to an axiom this-given a
good digestion, and tubercle is impossible.
Take a case of scrofulous ulcer. Do you
| doctor the ulcerS The hoi polloi do. But do
educated physicians? Do you prescribe patent
and neighborhood salves or powders to heal up
| a sore, back of which stands and works
vitiated organizationY Isn't there a force back
| of the visible morbid result which is constant
| ly spending itself upon glands and joints and
| tissues-a force which first makes the ulcer and
afterwards keeps it open? A healthy wound you
| may rapidly close up by adhesive in =ammation
| or granulation, but this is healthy wound
all the forces tend to restoration-but an ulcer
which is the result of blood vitiation you don't
expect to close by local interference. You
want to make good blood, and good blood will
carry material for repair, and that reparative
material is the only salve which closes up your
scrofulous trouble. Now in order to thus better
blood you must depend upon digestion and
assimilation, and here you see coming to the
front the stomach as therapeutic agent Very
surely, II you have not good digestive appa-
ratus, your case of knee joint or glandular
swelling or other scrofulous development is not
in the way of recovery.
think we may safely claim that the stomach |
at last is the great rebuider of broken down |
organization. If the stomach is also broken |
down, where is the hope for your dilapidated
structure? 1t is a wreck, and presently goes |
to dust. Let us adopt preventive measures |
then-preserve digestion at its best, and take |
off from the list of causes this habit of over |
use
Let us look for moment at another force on |
the inside Of the mana terrific force, which, |
misdirected, not only vitates and brands the |
man, but pollutes and poisons the generation /
which comes after him.
No philosophy, no morals, medicine, no |
sanitation is at all complete which does not re-
cognlZe and give prominence TO sexual pas
sion. We cannot ignore t, if we would 1t is |
among the great modifying Influences of hui |
man character; it is sometimes the dominant |
influence IN both man and woman. AS medi- |
cal men and as personal friends we all know /
what disaster is wrought in the life over which |
1t exercises supreme control Now, as medical |
man, as sanitary counsellor, what are you go /
ing 10 do with your young friend? Have |
you any preventive measures by which /
to ward off blood poisoning and
torture2 You talk about drainage to fight off |
malaria, and you right What do you say /
to this hideous spectre? Spectre, did say? /
No, this terrific reality. Unquestionabiy the |
answer is subdue the passion-fight it as an
enemy to health-fght it by all hygienic ap- |
pliances, physical and moral-fght il its
earliest assaults upon your strongholds and
drive it into submission. Make no compro-
mise. You must conquer it or be conquered
by 1t, and when 1t has conquered it will write
upon you in letters of fire the one word liber-
tine, and the nemesis of violated law will stalk
beside you with very pitilesS revenge.
The remedy is within you. You must recog-
nize this great evil as preventable. Don't at
tempt to ignore it or dodge it. meet it squarey
grapple, or throttle it. -
know how gliby the debauchee talks about
frOVlQenc6 as the glVer or his appetlteS and
passions. Yes, know all that. Passion is an
original implantation and it's exercise perpetu-
ates the race; but while this world is God gov
erned it is also law governed, and the law is |
that undue use of natural and God given pow
ers sets up a fire which shall consume you.
Obedience to law rests with you; and this is the
sanitarian'S preventive.
Morals do you say? say, yes sir We can |
not dodge responsibility by claiming that it is
not our business to teach morality. / tell
you as a hygienist we are bound to teach it.
uvith hn1fo 1
moral life 1t is as much a part of hygienic |
living as exercise or cleanliness or sleep.
If the nettled skeptic with his morbid life
burden chooses to regard it as terrific phylo-
sophy putting moral restraint upon his personal
freedom, tell him yes, that is exactly true, |
and if you reject the restraint you do it at your
peril. The debauchee who has vitiated his or
ganization by unphy ysiological living, must
come under a higher law than that of animal
passions, and so long as he is in sanitary hands
the saniUarian is his lawgiver. He may call it
transcendental morals. call 1t phylosophic
hygiene 1t may require at times some nerve
to do it, but this is not the only occasion
in life where it requires some nerve
to do the right thing. But would
the professional hygienist feel like man If,
with clear convictions, he had failed to do the
right thing, and by reason of his cowardice has
suffered the wrong to triumph. Very much less |
than man think, it in our own chosen field |
we should suffer brutal passion to beat back
and put to rout cur high and true professional
convictions. To stand still, and dumb and let
lite in its widest decaucherv run riot is not |
by any means part Of hygiene philosophy
Sanitarians do not propose to put off their
armor and surrender at will to the sceptic who
scouts all moral teaching and filings def
ance in the face of physiology and experience, |
and the common decencies Of a high civiliza-
ton.
Now, sir, claim that there are diseases with
in the purview Of preventive medicine, and as |
legitimately the subject of consideration by
this association as malaria or small pox; that |
they are more certainly under mans control |
than any OF the generally accepted prevent /
able diseases about which we write, and about /
which people read.
Captious criticism is asking through the pub
lie press for something practical, something
we can understand. tell you two OF the most |
formidable diseases which blight humanity are |
directly under your own control Can un-
guarded and impassoned humanity under
stand thatF VIII carping skepticism
deny that this is practicalS Proof do |
side of the facts which present themselves /
every day, and under the glare of such facts /
read the law which says thou shalt not, with /
quite as much emphasis as that other which /
says thou shalt-laws which are older than /
Parliaments and Congresses. Congresses and /
Parliaments are themselves the products of /
law--law as old as human nature and inground |
in human organiZation-not practical Is the |
confagration which follows tinder under flint |
and steel practical Something to under |
stand: Can you understand the disaster to your
Mississippi coast which comes from inunda- /
ton at its source and along the whole line of i
its turbulent fowf Anything practical in that! |
banlJarlanS are essentially practIcal am Il
not claiming any impossible things / do not /
endorse any human perfection. Humanity is i
essentially imperfect, and through all this life |
walks with faltering step The great mistake |
made by Chateaubriand and Madame De Stael /
and Fontanes, who taught the perfectability of /
man, lies in the fact that man is flite-tO be /
finite forblds perfection-but 80 far as imper /
feet humanity can, we propose to forbid the |
causes OF disease, and Just so far make disease |
impossible. The idle critic who imagines that |
hygiene proposes to bring human life back to a |
thousand years is more visionary and IRA
tional than the widest hygienest who has |
written or spoken outside of insane aSylums.
The hypercriticsm which taunts us with |
Utopian schemes and sneers at Incompetent
sible diagrams cannot fail to recognize these |
as preventible diseases, nor can it ignore the |
preventibility of that crowning infamy of hui |
man habits, the habit of strong drink-the |
source of more disease than all the Pontine /
marshes of the world. Scepticism will surely /
stand dumb in the presence of such practical |
fact as that. Then stand side by side with us /
to prevent that, and peans will 90 up from all |
| the earth in praise for plague stayed, and |
the heart of humanity will invoke blessing |
on those who stay the desolation. The |
spirit of him who doubts in the face |
of all that sanitation has accomplished |
in the last fifty years is a regular |
trausmigration OF him who repudiated Jenner |
and his vaccine; who sneered at Franklin and |
secuted his philosophy and his kite; who, |
coming down through the generations, secuted /
who doubted Morse and his telegraph; who |
only the other day secuted Bell and his tele- |
phone. What are these powers nowf Chief |
in hQ am Al Of ff.<l