Another Case of Infection.-Another famous illustration is found in the history of the "tea water pump" of broad Street, Near Golden square, London, which during the cholera visitation of 1854, killed nearly 500 persons in a single week, in one of the fashionable localities of the city. It has long been known that water containing five or six grains of lime and magnesium to the gallon is much to be preferred for making tea to water of any other quality. This is because the line precipitates the astringent matter of the leaf, yet does not interfere with the solution of the desirable constituents; and hence certain wells which have the proper proportion of mineral matter come to be valued very highly by persons of nice taste.
The images represent a tea water pump in New York(left) placed over a natural spring (right) that had existed in Manhattan long before Europeans came to the colonies and helped create situations where cholera could break out.
This reference to the 1854 Cholera outbreak would have been relatively recent in the minds of many. It would have only been about 60 years old at the time of this articles printing, however, when this book was first published, it may have been referenced when the epidemic was only 20 – 30 years old possibly. In terms of recency or relevancy, we today might have a similar perspective on the massacre at Jonestown or the Kennedy killing. It would have made a much bigger impression on people that heard the news than say a case of food poisoning resulting from a problem with popcorn machines or something in a bar or movie theater.
Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:
- The Kidneys
The Kidneys.– The kidneys are two glandular bodies, having for their functions the secretion of urine. The form of the kidney resembles a French bean; its average length team from four to four and a half inches, two inches in breadth and one in thickness. The two kidneys are situated one on each side of the spine and the lumbar region, opposite the last two dorsal and two first lumbar vertebrae; they are a brownish-read color flattened from before word, and grooved on the anterior border for the reception of the great vessels.
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I do not know what a French bean looks like, but I suspect people to read the book 100 years ago probably did. I suppose this is some sort of reference point is lost its way over the years even though I’m sure there are a few people that knows what this still is. This book was written to be a common reference for the everyday person hundred years ago, but it probably would not connect home with everyday people in the current century. There are a number of ways to look at this, but it is important to remember that a reference that can be understood is very important when you’re trying to help somebody possibly save their life or prevent further injury, if you give a reference to medical supplies describing what they look like and where they should be located, but the person that you tell doesn’t understand what you’re saying it could be the difference between life and death. That said, this is more of an anatomy lesson and it is doubtful that the average person really needed to know what the kidneys look like in a human person. This was probably more beneficial for a person that might actually consider studying it as an in depth later on down the road.
- BONES OF THE HEAD, BASE AND NECK.
Bones of the Skull — this illustration gives an accurate and faithful representation of the head, face and neck, surrounded by an outline of the fleshy parts as they appear in the human frame. The bones of the head, eight in number, constitute the skull, and those of the face, 14 and number, compose a strong, hard bony case, which encloses and affords a suitable protection for the brain and the four organs a special sense, viz.: site, smell, taste and hearing. All of these bones are in movable, except the lower jaw, which moves by means of a hinge-joint, and permits of the opening and closing of the mouth.
One of the things that struck me as I dictated this last segment (for my readers information I am using Dragon Naturally Speaking to dictate this text as well as my views on the text) was the large number of commas as used in this paragraph. By my count there were 15 used in this paragraph which had three sentences. Now this book in general uses the coma extensively and reminds me of a style of writing that I was taught in grade school shortly before several rules of language were simplified. For example when I was in grade school I was taught that a conjunction that included the word “and” should have a coma in between each item building up to the conjunction including the last word that preceded the word “and.”
Back then I would’ve drafted this sentence as follows:
I went to the store, the post office, the car wash, and the bank.Later in high school some economy of writing came about and decreased 1 of the commas needed in writing. I don’t know when or why this occurred, but I do recall several grammar teachers remarking on the fact and teach in is the new writing style. Back then I didn’t follow the news quite to the extent that I do today and so I do not recall whether there was a boost in the global economy due to the increased productivity allowed workers especially “knowledge workers” who would not have had to write, type or dictate quite as many commas. In fact they would have one less coma to write. Can you imagine what everyone did with all that extra time saved him from writing?
Now honestly one coma probably to make that big of a difference. But now as I read the library of health I realize that over the last 82 a hundred years the world hasn’t saved just one coma; they have saved close to a dozen per paragraph. Computers may have brought a significant amount of productivity to the workforce, but just imagine how much we’ve saved over the last hundred years writing fewer comas.
I wonder when the majority of the comas as were lost. Maybe it was the result of World War I or World War II or the combination of both wars. It’s possible that to expedite communications Society had to adapt and reduce the number of dits in das used in a telegraph. The war to end all wars may have failed in Indian all wars, but it may have succeeded in putting an end to a few extra comas.
- Muscles of the Eye
Muscles of the Eye.-I’m turning the flap we see four of the six delicate, who with all strong muscles which I would hold I firmly in its bony orbit, but also moved upward toward the canopied vaults of heaven, downward to view the beauties of nature on earth; or sideways to the right or left, Spain have to horizon at a single glance! The next illustration gives us a graphic and faithful to limitation of the beautiful arrangements of the numerous curtains, humors, lenses, pigments, membranes, nervous coats and blood vessels which enter into the composition of this remarkable organ, each of which is exquisitely adapted to the respective functions has to perform.
As you can tell, we are getting back on track with this effort after a couple month hiatus mostly do to (ironically) poor health. No other projects are going to slow us down and we now have a promoter that will even help us hire more transcriptionists as we cover Wilmington real estate.