About those who are predisposed to consumption

These people are stooped, narrow-chested, whose shoulder blades are almost devoid of meat, especially at the back, and protrude forward. They protrude so much that it seems as if such a person has two wings, and his shoulders seem to be separated from the entire arm in front and behind. People with long and forward-sloping necks are predisposed to consumption; their throat sometimes protrudes and jumps up; Such people have a lot of wind in their chest in adjacent places, and their chest is swollen because it is small. If at the same time such people have a weakness in the brain, which absorbs excess, and food is not completely digested, then all the conditions for developing consumption are present, especially when their juices are sharp and bilious. And in appearance, people who quickly get consumption are, as mentioned, stooped, with sparse hair and white skin with a reddish tint, as well as those who have a strong, dense body, because they often have ruptures of blood vessels. By nature, people with a colder nature are susceptible to this, and the age at which consumption often occurs is from eighteen to thirty years. In cold countries it occurs more frequently, since blood vessels often burst there and there are numerous cases of hemoptysis. The time of year when this disease becomes more frequent is autumn.

What should such people beware of? Such people should beware of all caustic and spicy foods and medicines and everything that strains the chest organs: that is, screaming, irritation, jumping.

Signs of consumption. They consist in the appearance of sputum with matter that has the already described signs of pus in shape, color, density, etc., as well as a constant drying fever due to the proximity of the heart to the site of the disease. The fever increases after eating and at night, just as any drying fever increases due to the moistening of the body with food; We will mention this in its place. However, withering fever is often combined with other fevers: relapsing fever, four-day fever, five-day fever. The worst of them is the five-day one, then comes the half-three-day one, then the return one. When consumption begins, the symptoms that we will list at the end of the paragraph on suppuration also appear, and the patients are constantly drenched in sweat, because their strength is too weak to retain and dispose of nutrients, and the heat dissolves them and causes them to flow. If there are scabs in the sputum, then there is no doubt that the patient has consumption, especially if the mentioned circumstances leading to consumption have occurred in the past, and if the body begins to lose weight, the nails become arched and the hair falls due to lack of nutrition and spoilage of the excess, it means , the assumptions are correct.

At the beginning of consumption the complexion sometimes becomes leaden, but it turns red when the vapor rises from the lungs; tension is felt in the neck and sides, especially when the disease gets stronger; The limbs, especially the legs, swell in the last days of the illness and become swollen due to deterioration of the juices and the dying of the innate warmth in the most distant parts of the body due to the bad quality of nature. Those whose consumption is caused by corrosive juice secrete saliva that tastes like sea water, very salty. Their pulse is steady, moderately fast and small, and sometimes there are deviations in one direction or the other. Then, after this, rumbling appears in the stomach, the false ribs deviate upward and thirst intensifies. The urge to eat disappears due to the weakness of natural forces, and the stomach is often upset due to loss of strength. A consumptive person sometimes coughs up tube rings and particles of the body of blood vessels, and this happens when death approaches. If the expectorated vascular particles are large, then they are from the lungs, and if they are small, then they are from the tube. Consumptives often cough up pebbles, but they cough up tube rings if a large ulcer has formed.

At the end of the disease, sputum and saliva thicken, and then expectoration stops due to weakness of strength, and patients often die from suffocation. And sometimes the appearance of such sputum is not delayed until the end of the disease, and it is released at the beginning, if the type of consumption is malignant and the disease arose from coarse, indigestible juices. If expectoration stops at the end of consumption, patients often do not live longer than four days. Sometimes the cessation of expectoration occurs due to weakness of strength; in this case, the breathing of patients sometimes narrows so much that it becomes as if imperceptible. Often their cough intensifies and causes continuous hemoptysis; if it is treated with drugs that prevent hemoptysis, then the patients die, although they have a feeling of relief, and if they are allowed to cough, they die a quick death from bleeding. If a person is sick with consumption and blisters like beans appear on his shoulder blades, then he dies in fifty-two days