Health | by W. H. Coefield
This book contains Lectures that were delivered at the Rooms of the Society-of Arts, under the auspices of the Trades' Guild of Learning and of the National Health Society. They have been corrected from the shorthand writer's notes, and are published in almost exactly the form in which they were given. The Sanitary apparatus described can be studied at the Parkes Museum of Hygiene in University College, London.
| Title | Health |
| Author | W. H. Coefield |
| Publisher | C. Kegan Paul & Co. |
| Year | 1880 |
| Copyright | 1880, C. Kegan Paul & Co. |
By W. H. Coefield, M.A., M.D. (Oxon.), F.R.CP., Professor Of Hygiene And Publio Health At University College, London ; Medical Officer Of Health And Public Analyst For St. George's Hanover Square ; Examiner In Sanitary Science At The University Of Cambridge
Lecture I. General Anatomy-The Bones And Muscles- Before we begin the study of the Laws of Health, it is absolutely essential to know something of the human body, which is to be kept healthy. Canon Kingsley, to whose suggestion the foundation of p...
- Bones and their Uses
- Bone, is in the first place, the hardest substance in the body (with the exception of the teeth), and contains three parts of mineral matter to only one part of organic or living substance. This compo...
- The Eibs and Breast-bone
- To the twelve vertebrae of the back there are attached on each side twelve pairs of thin curved bones called ribs. These bones are attached not one to each vertebra, but one between each two, i.e., ea...
- Joints
- Bones are joined together in several ways. In the first place, they are joined together by what we call fixed or immovable joints, such as have been explained in our description of the skull. Then the...
- Movements
- In all true joints the bones glide one over the other, and in certain joints that is the only movement possible, as, for instance, between the bones in the wrist. In other joints an angular motion is ...
- Lecture II. The Circulation Of The Blood
- You all know there is a fluid in the body which we call blood, and that the object of this fluid is to nourish the tissues of the body; you can see, therefore, that it is necessary that this fluid sho...
- The Circulation Of The Blood. Part 2
- This artery, the great aorta, gives off branches. The first branches that it gives off are two small branches a little above the semilunar valves, and these go into the substance of the heart. They ar...
- The Circulation Of The Blood. Part 3
- As soon as that happens the walls of the right ventricle contract, which is just what happened on the left side, thus pressing the blood against the valves, which are at the beginning of the large art...
- The Circulation Of The Blood. Part 4
- Now, it is by means of the alterations in these sounds of the heart that physicians are often able to tell whether there is heart disease, and to distinguish between various heart diseases. I meant...
- The Circulation Of The Blood. Part 5
- Now you must fancy from that that there must be a great many of them, and that they must be very small; they are about the 3200th part of an inch across; 3200 would lie along an inch. That, however, d...
- Lecture III. Respiration
- We will now consider the apparatus by means of which we breathe, the way in which that apparatus works, and the result of that working. The principal organs that are used in breathing go by the nam...
- Respiration. Part 2
- The chest cavity is entirely enclosed by these walls, and is completely shut off by them from the external air, so that there is no communication between the external air and the cavity of the chest i...
- Respiration. Part 3
- We have seen roughly now what the apparatus is, and how it works. An adult in breathing air in, inspires on an average from 20 to 30 cubic inches of air, that is to say about three-quarters of a pi...
- Respiration. Part 4
- Now, we say, then, that by passing through these capillary vessels, the blood has gained oxygen from the air, and has given up carbonic acid and water into the air; by these changes the blood becomes ...
- Lecture IV. Nutrition
- The food that we eat requires to be prepared in various ways before it can become part of the structures of which our body is composed. To this end, there is a complex apparatus contained in our bodie...
- Nutrition. Part 2
- Now, as to the first set of teeth. In front there are two teeth with edges like a chisel, cutting edges; these are called the incisor teeth, because they are used in cutting up the food, and they are ...
- Nutrition. Part 3
- So we see that the presence of the food in the mouth, and the exercise of the tongue and cheeks, cause the salivary fluid to flow from the glands into the mouth; that fluid is mixed up with the food t...
- Nutrition. Part 4
- When a man drinks standing on his head, it is quite clear that the water does not fall up his neck; so that whether eating or drinking we deliberately swallow the thing almost in morsels, at any rate ...
- Nutrition. Part 5
- I have told you that when the food is going down through the gullet into the stomach the starch is changed into sugar, but if any of the starch should not have been changed into sugar as it goes down ...
- Lecture V. The Liver And The Excretory Organs
- The liver is the largest gland in the body. It is an organ situated on the right hand side of the abdomen, immediately underneath the diaphragm, to which it is attached by a strong fibrous ligament. I...
- The Liver And The Excretory Organs. Part 2
- You see already, from what I have told you, that in the liver certain substances are separated from the blood, and certain substances added to it. I will go on at once to speak of the important org...
- The Liver And The Excretory Organs. Part 3
- The Kidneys are two organs situated in the abdomen, one on each. side of the vertebral column; their shape is well known, and needs no description. These organs are true glands ; each has a duct which...
- Lecture VI. The Nervous System
- This is the system which regulates and controls the action of all the other organs of the body. In us, and in the higher animals generally - i.e., vertebrate animals -there are two nervous systems, on...
- The Nervous System. Part 2
- These spinal nerves, then, are distributed to different parts of the body. Those from the upper part of the spinal cord are distributed chiefly to the muscles and skin of the neck, and the parts near ...
- The Nervous System. Part 3
- Supposing that, instead of cutting through the whole of the spinal cord, you cut through the front part of it, so as to cut right across the white matter of the front of the spinal cord, it is then fo...
- The Nervous System. Part 4
- When the skin of a part of the body is irritated, a message is started along the nerves up to the spinal cord; it goes into the grey matter which we call the nervous centre of the spinal cord; that gr...
- The Nervous System. Part 5
- I have mentioned the Sixth pair already; the seventh pair of nerves are called the facial nerves, because they supply the muscles of the face; they are purely motor nerves. The eighth pair were cou...
- Lecture VII. Organs Of The Senses
- Let us now consider the organs by which the brain and spinal cord are put into communication with the outer world, which receive impressions from the outer world (impressions which are, if you like, c...
- Organs Of The Senses. Part 2
- Now, as to the sense of smell,- You will remember that I told you in the last lecture, that of the twelve pairs of cranial nerves that leave the brain the first pair are devoted to the sense of sme...
- Organs Of The Senses. Part 3
- Pretty nearly opposite the place where the white part of the outside coat of the eye joins the transparent part, there is fixed a transparent body, which we call the crystalline lens-shaped like what ...
- Organs Of The Senses. Part 4
- I say that the place where the optic nerve enters the eyeball, where there are most nerve fibres, is blind, so we see that it is not nerve fibres that are affected by the stimulus of light; the layer ...
- Organs Of The Senses. Part 5
- What have we two eyes for ? Why will not one eye do ? Well, it is astonishing what people having but one eye are able to do with it, but that is a matter of great practice. Having two eyes, we are abl...
- Lecture VIII. The Health Of The Individual
- The causes of disease have been studied from the very earliest times; the earliest writers on medicine wrote far more about the laws of health than they wrote about medicine. Hippocrates, the celebrat...
- The Health Of The Individual. Part 2
- These are the three chief temperaments of the ancient writers, but another, called the bilious temperament, is often mentioned. This, however, we do not now consider a temperament, because it is not d...
- The Health Of The Individual. Part 3
- Nervous diseases also run in families. Not that any one nervous disease necessarily descends in any family, but nervous diseases generally are hereditary. They are associated, as I told you just now, ...
- The Health Of The Individual. Part 4
- That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. In infancy, the first great danger is from external col...
- The Health Of The Individual. Part 5
- In mentioning foods that were not fit to give to infants, I mentioned starchy foods, and starchy foods, unless extremely well cooked, are positively indigestible. I mentioned also broths and soups, an...
- Lectuee IX. The Health Of The Individual. Part 6
- Scarlet Fever is one of the diseases that are very prevalent among young children-a disease, like the rest of these infectious diseases, which spreads very readily in places where there is no through ...
- Lectuee IX. The Health Of The Individual. Part 7
- From all I have said about children, you wijl see that I believe, and that those whom I have quoted believe, that they require a great deal of tact and care, and that the prevalent idea that children ...
- Lectuee IX. The Health Of The Individual. Part 8
- In youth, the third period, growth is still going on : a great deal more food is required then than later on in life, and much exercise is desirable. It is not necessary to warn great numbers of the y...
- Lectuee IX. The Health Of The Individual. Part 9
- At this time of life, too, anaemia,, or bloodlessness, is particularly prevalent among those who work in overcrowded, close rooms, with many gas lights. It is especially prevalent among young girls wh...
- Lectuee IX. The Health Of The Individual. Part 10
- We pass on to green old age and decrepit old age, and in these periods the diseases are chronic. There are diseases that especially belong to this time of life, such as cancer, a disease for which ...
- Lecture X. The Air
- The air we breathe, about which I am going to speak to-night, is a material substance. We feel it when it blows upon our faces, and we find it exercises pressure upon objects on the surface of the ear...
- The Air. Part 2
- This may be easily tested by taking a bottle of gas that has an offensive smell or a gas that irritates the lungs and letting it out into a room; its presence will be easily detected by every person i...
- Lecture XL. The Air. Part 3
- Air contains a small quantity of a substance we call ammonia; a very small quantity only, amounting to about 4 parts in 10,000,000 parts of air. It contains also, under ordinary circumstances, a ve...
- The Air. Part 4
- The reason that the air we breathe out is not fit to breathe in again, is not that it contains carbonic acid, but because of the presence of foul organic matter, and because it contains too little oxy...
- The Air-Continued. Part 5
- Another thing that should be carefully remembered is that some of these mineral oils have a penetrating power, and will pass through a china lamp and appear on the outside, and evaporate into the air,...
- Lecture XII. The Air. Part 6
- There are a large number of trades in which solid particles and offensive gases are given out into the air. For instance, in the air of mines there is a large quantity of finely divided solid parti...
- The Air-Continued. Part 7
- In the manufactories of. chloride of lime (bleaching powder), and in places where it is used for bleaching wool and other materials, chlorine gas is given off into the air, and irritates the respirato...
- The Air-Continued. Part 8
- How are differences in the weight of the air to be utilised ? The first thing we have to consider is the condition of the air in an apartment The air that we breathe out, and the air given out by ligh...
- The Air-Continued. Part 9
- Louvre ventilators are made of slips of wood, glass, etc., very much like Venetian blinds-which latter make good ventilators if you open the top of the window, and turn the blind so that the laths slo...
- Lecture XIII. Foods And Drinks
- We are continually, as you know, getting rid of certain substances from our bodies. We get rid, in the first place, by means of all our excretory organs, of a considerable quantity of water; we get ri...
- Foods And Drinks. Part 2
- Among substances that do not contain nitrogen there are, then, two important classes, the fats and oils, and the starches, sugars, and gums. We shall see what becomes of these when they are taken in o...
- Foods And Drinks. Part 3
- These, then, are the chief substances contained in foods. The diet of an adult doing an average amount of work should consist of a mixture of the food substances I have just described, in the follo...
- Lecture XIV. Foods And Drinks. Part 4
- We will next consider the flesh of animals. We may divide animal meats somewhat roughly into what are called red and white. Red meats contain the greatest amount of nutriment in a highly concentrated ...
- Foods And Drinks. Part 5
- The viscera of animals are often eaten, for instance the kidneys, liver, part of the stomach as tripe, and the sweetbread. This is more or less a matter of taste, as, on the whole, these are not so go...
- Foods And Drinks. Part 6
- I will now mention the important preparations we make from milk. Butter, which you know is made from the cream of milk, consists almost entirely of the fat. Fresh butter contains from 10 to 15 per cen...
- Foods And Drinks. Part 7
- We use other vegetables for various reasons-some for starch, especially potatoes, yams, artichokes, but most for salts of certain vegetable acids, such as the malic, citric, tartaric, eta. It has b...
- Lecture XV. Drinking Water
- Water is one of the most important of our foods, it is a necessity of life to us. Our bodies contain about two-thirds of their weight of water, and the blood contains 79 per cent of it. Water is conti...
- Drinking Water. Part 2
- But another point of view, and an important one, which makes the consideration of the hardness of the water of some moment, is that you cannot make good tea with hard water. You can make very much bet...
- Drinking Water. Part 3
- In a number of instances of this, perhaps one of the most striking is the Millbank Prison. The prisoners used to suffer from a variety of diseases, one of them being typhoid fever. This they got from ...
- Drinking Water. Part 4
- Towns may also sometimes be supplied with pure water by means of artesian wells, but the too prevalent plan of supplying towns with water that we know has been polluted must be condemned. We will n...
- Lecture XVI. Climate
- Under the head of Climate let us first consider moisture in the atmosphere. The air dissolves water just in the same way as water dissolves sugar or salt. The air dissolves very different quantities o...
- Climate. Part 2
- Let us consider, first, a moist warm atmosphere. It may be very moist, because warm air can hold a considerable quantity of moisture in solution. On account of the warmth of the air, its lightness, an...
- Climate. Part 3
- When one mass of air containing a large quantity of water dissolved in it meets another of the same bulk which is colder than itself, and they mix, the resulting mixture has the mean temperature of th...
- Climate. Part 4
- Considering that two-thirds of the surface of the earth is covered with water, if any difference is effected at all it is clear that a very considerable difference must be made in the climate of place...
- Lecture XVII. Houses And Towns
- We will now consider the sanitary arrangements in houses, and to a certain extent in towns also. I will first say a few words about water cisterns. With the system of constant service there is n...
- Houses And Towns. Part 2
- Now, a most important question is, Where does the waste-pipe go to ? In almost all old houses in London the waste-pipe, even if the cistern be at the top of the house, goes straight down through the h...
- Houses And Towns. Part 3
- If not got rid of they produce disease, and in every place where refuse matters are not got rid of speedily, there is a high death-rate, and especially a large proportion of deaths among infants. T...
- Houses And Towns. Part 4
- It is frequent now, and a very good practice, to make an air opening at about the level of the ground, leading into the drain just on the house side of the trap which separates the drain or house sewe...
- Houses And Towns. Part 5
- Sewage should be got rid of upon the land, and although there are very great difficulties in the way of it, I can safely say that there is no other system that has been suggested which is capable of p...
- Houses And Towns. Part 6
- It is rarely that people have smallpox more than once ; but yet there are not a few cases on record where the same person has had it twice, and a certain number three times, and even more, so that it ...
- Houses And Towns. Part 7
- He tried vaccination from a person who had caught cow-pox from the cow-from the cow directly, and afterwards from the person who had been inoculated from the cow, and found all equally successful. ...
- Houses And Towns. Part 8
- It has been quite clearly shown that people can be vaccinated well and badly; that good or bad vaccination depends upon the number and kind of marks produced. Mr. Simon showed this some years ago by c...
- Houses And Towns. Part 9
- I am glad to find that this matter has been lately investigated by a Board of Guardians in a part of the country which has been noted for its opposition to vaccination ; I will read you the account gi...
- Lecture XIX. Communicable Diseases
- Among diseases that are very largely spread in communities, there is one great class of diseases which do not travel from the places in which they are found; they prevail very largely among the people...
- Communicable Diseases. Part 2
- One resemblance of these phenomena to putrefaction that I will point out is, that the poisons of these diseases and the bodies which produce putrefaction alike multiply indefinitely in suitable media,...
- Communicable Diseases. Part 3
- The poisons, most notably those of cholera and enteric fever, which are got rid of from the body by means of the intestinal canal, get into sewage, and so the sewage gets infected. The poisons are the...
- Communicable Diseases. Part 4
- The idea that children must have measles and whooping cough is an entire mistake. If these diseases do not kill children directly, they kill a very large number indirectly, and maim a great many more ...
- Communicable Diseases. Part 5
- In London the different vestries and district boards are the sanitary authorities, and each of them is empowered to provide hospitals for infectious diseases when they exist. But as a matter of fac...
