The next section covers The View of the Eye on page 36. The next section goes into a short description of the image of the eye as provider from a profile of a human skull which includes some of the muscles and nerves associated with the eyeball. It does not include a detailed description were drawing of the actual eyeball other than its contractual dry within that cross-section including the rest of the head.

View of the Eye -- We can likewise view the human eye as it lays in position in its bony socket, and wonder at our creators munificence and benevolence in providing us with such a delicate instrument of vision with which to light our way about in the world, and view the magnificent beauties of nature that surround us on every hand. Here, too, we observe the teeth, those essential prerequisites to personal beauty, and.able adjuncts to the powers of articulation and speech, protruding through the gums, their roots being visible above and below the gums; and the lower set we see the dental nerve distributing its nervous supply to their individual and collective roots.

There are a couple things that stand out in this one simple paragraph.

1. This book is written essentially by a collection of editors, that seemed to have taken information from many other oaks and sources over the years. As the book was written initially in the 1860s and updated throughout the next 50 odd years it's possible that copyrights and copying or even citing sources were not as necessary at the time. So it's difficult to tell who the original source of any of this information might have been other than the collective thank you at the beginning of the book. With all that said, it strikes me as odd that the editors would stray from the stated topic of "the eye" and move into a short discussion of the teeth within the same paragraph.
2. Often the book has already mentioned references to God, as the book was written at the turn of the century closing out the Victorian era, I assume that they are referring to the Christian God. I actually have few doubts about that. However it is illustrative of the fact that this particular book was written in a way that was not secular in nature. I suspect we will see many additional references throughout the book as time goes on and I'm withholding further views on the subject until I have a more complete picture of what the true views of the "editors" might be as they manifest in the edited writing.

Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:

• Detection of Lead in Water
  
  

  Detection of Lead in Water. — the method of detecting the probable presence of lead in a sample of drinking water is so simple that every reader is advised to take the first opportunity of examining their own water supplies, and so making sure that they or their families are not liable to the insidious dangers of lead poisoning. In order to determine whether a water is contaminated with lead, all one has to do is to drop two or three drops of the solution of sulfide of ammonium into the suspected fluid, contained in a white bowl or large cup, and observe whether a brownish or yellowish coloration is produced. If the liquid remains perfectly clear and colorless you may be sure that it either contains no lead, or that such a metallic impurities present in a quantity of less than 1/10 of a grain to the gallon, an amount which is not generally injurious to health. If , however, a slight brownish tint is produced in the water which is being tested, it must not be too hastily condemned is poisoned, since either copper or iron might give rise to the same coloration with the reagent. Such a suspicious water pots, however, to be properly analyzed by some good analytical chemist before being employed for either cooking or drinking purposes any further.

   

  I would just like to remind readers and visitors that this is a review of the practices taught in medicine almost 100 years ago and should not necessarily be considered accurate and up to date.  Performing any of the actions in this blog may not be safe or have a desirable effect or result any more than using bamboo shades for fencing or taking instructions from a bugs bunny cartoon.

• Diseases Caused by Alkaline Waters
  
  

  Diseases Caused by Alkaline Waters. — the symptoms referral to an excess of alkalinity, rising from the presence of these earthy salts in a drinking water, and mainly those of a dyspeptic nature. At first the employment of hard water by persons who are unaccustomed to it produces diarrhea. Which is occasionally serious or even dangerous in its character. But the long continued use of such a drinking fluid is thought to cause habitual constipation, with the heavy training of evils, including piles and liver complaint, which depend upon it. Calculus, or stone in the kidney or in the bladder, which gives rise sometimes to the most horrible agony human beings are ever called upon to endure, is believed to be due, in many instances, to an excess of lime and magnesia salts in the drinking water.

  This section is definitely interesting. And as I read this section, I distinctly heavy memory of watching an old Clint Eastwood movie. Clint Eastwood’s trek across the desert somewhere in the southwest of the United States, and of course the bad guys are chasing him. Clint Eastwood is smart enough to recognize that the water in one pool that he comes to has an alkalinity level far too high to drink. He has a sidekick, who initially attempt to drink the water but Clint Eastwood stops him knowing better. Then the bad guys come by sometime later and drink the water and one of them croak’s. This particular section highlights the fact that you may not die instantly from drinking this water but it can definitely make you very ill in the short-term afterwords, or very ill in a chronic way if you consume this type of water over a long period of time. Plus I’m sure that there is some water that is poisonous right from go. 

  This section also reminds me of a water purification straw that was handed out at a trade show that I attended a few years back. The water purification straw was handed out like personalized pens are handed out at most trade shows, but this was a bit of a outdoorsman tradeshow focusing on hunting tools and guns and stuff like that. I’m under the impression that water purification straw’s or tablets even only work to essentially remove microbes are things that might trigger Montezuma’s revenge, but now I have to wonder if maybe they had the ability to cancel out our alkalinity and balance the pH a bit.

• Typhoid Fever from Polluted Water
  
  

  Typhoid Fever from Polluted Water. — the remarks which have been already made with regard to the influence of impure water on the spread of cholera, apply still with greater force to the causation of typhoid fever. So, does this move propagation that the assertion may be ventured that few readers of these pages have not lost some near relative or beloved friend from the dreaded disease arising in this way, although the true source of the infection was perhaps, at the time it occurred, quite unsuspected.

  Okay so if you have been following this recent series on typhoid fever and cholera, the general theme here is that polluted water and contaminants brought to water sources were extremely dangerous for what we would consider civilization just a hundred years ago.  It might be a little bit more difficult to picture something of an epidemic raging through London or New York City today.  However you might consider just how fragile ecosystems of the city’s are today.  They rely on massive systems to clean the water.  If power to those systems were to fail for an extended period of time, the spread of disease could rapidly start up with population centers at levels that are much higher than they ever were one hundred years ago.

  There is only so much that any government agency or even the military for that matter can do to potentially help in a situation like that.  We have recently seen what happened in New Orleans were a population of just one million people were essentially left behind.  That occurred during a flood after a hurricane, and so there were aspects of that situation that definitely complicated things.

  However, if we consider just how big of a failure a given city might experience when it has a population of several million people in it, things could be much more dangerous.  I’m not just talking about the potential for riots and looting, and the necessary levels of police forces, National Guard, and other members needed to come in and secure the area.  I’m talking about the need of infrastructure and support systems necessary to keep the city functioning.

  A possible better example of a complete breakdown of the system, could probably be evidenced in the failure that took hold in Baghdad following the invasion of US troops.  Not only did the system fail from a water supply and electricity supply perspective, but the residents took to sabotaging and looting some of the equipment that made those systems work.

  We often times here about how the military was unprepared for that particular situation, and we think about soldiers going into battle without the proper Kevlar vests, or armor plating on Humvees or even little things like replacement Kevlar helmets, or 5.11 Tactical Knives, or night vision goggles.  We don’t always think about the fact that they don’t go into a city armed with plumbers and engineers, and plumbers and engineers at levels large enough to actually run the city.

  So as we look back on this historical accounting of the perils of these diseases, we should not make the mistake of thinking, that this could not happen to us.  It is very possible that we are only a few days of electricity away from being reduced to a similar state or level of technology needed to protect us.  In Zimbabwe it actually took a couple years, as the President of that country systematically dismantled his country with one failed policy after the next, but we have also seen a President in the United States, whose bad policies have similarly brought an even larger more successful country down, it might not be impossible for a different President to finish the job.

  

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