The Mosquito.-the mosquito is a common carrier of yellow fever and malaria or "chills and fever" as it is sometime spoken of by the public. Malaria is caused by a tiny parasite which can only be seen by the microscope in the blood of man and the mosquito. It lives and multiplies in the blood of an individual suffering from the disease.
It definitely is interesting to see that they do have a pretty good understanding of what malaria was even though the microscope was still relatively new back at time of publication of this book. Just a short description of the potential of this little insect that causes people so many problems. Malaria medicine and running water have helped people get away from these critters. Many colonial settlers in Africa tended to locate themselves close to rivers and streams to be close to running water. This was a formula that worked in colder climates where mosquitos were not as dangerous, but in the tropics this put them in the danger zone for malaria. They literally settled in the mosquito breeding areas.
Well and running water deliver waters into the homes around the world from the ground to the faucet helped people move away from the proximity of these danger areas, but there are still many people stuck in the original settled areas.
Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:
- WOMB, OVARIES AND VAGINA.
The Womb.–the plate beautifully and effectively illustrates the location and formation of the womb, that wonderful organ which performs the function of parturition, and which is so constructed as to assist in all the necessary efforts of birth. Its structure is elastic and strong, and it expands readily to accommodate the growth of the child (fœtus). While this is true exteriorly, its inner parts are rather delicately lined, and subject to a variety of painful diseases, generally designated as “Diseases of the Womb.”
At this point, the author or authors just couldn’t help themselves and a return to some of their previous form.
First off it like to point out the use of the word parturition. This word simply means the act of giving birth.
Second, I’d like to point out the atypical spelling of the word fetus, spelled as “fœtus.” I have wonder if the use of the spelling using the Greek characters “œ” was used to describe the fetus from a secular perspective while being very respectable of nonsecular concerns and sensibilities. The etymology of the word is actually theoretically linked to a spelling mistake by Saint Isidore of Seville, who introduced Aristotle to his countrymen around between 535 ad and 636 ad in his work the Etymologiae (taking its title from the method he used in the transcription of his era’s knowledge). He may not have been a travelpro but he was well learned. He brought ancient knowledge back into Western knowledge as early as the beginning of the Dark Ages.
Third, the last phrase of this section “Diseases of the Womb” seems to hint to me, and my perspective may be flawed, that the author is referring to illnesses often associated with women, but downplayed by doctors hundred years ago. They lump the large number of health issues together at times it did not take practical nor realistic look at it as they were avoiding the sensibility issues of the day.
- Combines Lightness and Strength
But notwithstanding this diversity in form, the general plan constantly kept in view by the Divine Architect has been the central idea of combining lightness with the greatest possible degree of strength. The bones of the arms and legs are round were triangular, and hollow, thus giving with the same weight a greater degree of strength that have solid, besides affording a larger surface for the attachment of muscles.
This quick little section doesn’t make a lot of sense when you read the first sentence, you have to remember that they’re talking about bones. The paragraph structure essentially of this section is what is slightly misleading. My grammar school English teacher would criticize a writer for not providing a topic sentence at the beginning of the paragraph.
Regardless they have hit on a novel last backed up the design of the human body, the design of bones. There many fascinating aspects about the human body and the strength and weight of bones is definitely a topic that has been worthy of consideration and study for many years. In some ways we have only recently begun to understand just how important the design of bones are in carrying mass and dealing with impact. So in this case the writers actually touching on a very interesting topic even though they are doing that and a manner that is a hundred years out of date and slightly out of focus.
- The Neck Muscles
The next section sets out the goal of covering the Neck Muscles. As the section of the book is describing an image, it shouldn’t be assumed that this will entail the full discourse on these areas of the body. It’s much more likely that this is a simple overview of these areas and more details will follow as there are 1600 more pages to go. So as we read this we should look at this as the simple summary introduction of the professional doctor attempting to describe the subject matter of the human body to a laywoman as the book is set out to educate wives and mothers in the arts of family nursing.
The neck muscles — this beautiful illustration brings out in bold relief is superficial and deep muscles of the neck, and, at the same time, we observe a faithful to litigation, not only of the relative position of the carotid artery and jugular vein, but also of the manner in which muscular and fleshy part of the neck receives its nervous supply.
This is a short section wrapping up the primary section titled “the brain; and a vertical section of the face and neck.” Again this one paragraph mention something that was referenced in the previous paragraph. It references the idea of the nervous supply. The section that contain information on the “view of the eye” went into slight detail about the supply of nerves to the teeth, “we see the dental nerve distributing its nervous supply to their individual and collective roots,” and then again we see the same description of a nervous supply here in the section, “and fleshy part of the neck receives its nervous supply.”
This reference to the nervous supply seems to describe something more than just a system of nerves as it might be described day and hints that a conceptual difference possibly stemming from a lack of knowledge about what the nervous system actually dozer performs. Scientists of the day were not ignorant of the electrical connections in the nervous system and the analogies to the movement of current, as many experiments have been done on animals and other systems of the day to identify the cause-and-effect associated with putting occurrence to a nerve for a muscle. To a certain degree this appears to be a choice of semantics probably utilized by the editors as opposed to an actual medical view. However based on the context that is not entirely possible to confirm or ascertain.