Sewer Gas Poison.  -- it had obviously absorbed sewer gas, which it ascended through the overflow pipe, and that this had been the real cause of the disease was indicated by the fact that the diarrhea disappeared almost as rapidly as it had broken out, when the cistern was emptied and the pipe efficiently trapped.

Diarrhea in Country Districts.  -- Dr. Wilson declares that, according to his experience, much of the diarrhea which prevails in country districts during the summer and autumn amongst children is due to polluted water, drunk either as it is drawn from the well or when mixed with milk, fraudulently or by accident.

I combined these two sections as they are both relatively short and again lend to my hypothesis that the author was paid for not only word count, but important (and unnecessary ) ‘important’ section count.  Now , that said, I find this interesting also from the perspective that I myself in doing home improvement projects from installing PVC pipe, toilets and bathroom faucets and systems, I  have worked through problems and with plumbing systems that benefited from this knowledge.  Although when I was taught how to install pipes and instructed in things about sewer gases and vents I was led to believe that these things were done primarily to help with the pressure and dynamics of making things flush and the possibility of what the gas might do in and of itself didn’t really come up, and was treated almost like something that was obvious.

Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:

• Cause for Bright’s Disease
  
  

  Cause for Bright’s Disease. — it has long seemed probable that the increasing prevalence of that terribly fatal malady, "Bright’s disease," especially in cities and large towns, maybe due to the poisonous effects of exceeding minute quantities of lead, dissolved from the lead pipes so generally employed as service conduits, notwithstanding the protective coating, which usually forms so promptly upon them.

  In the year 2008, this paragraph would seem like something rather obvious. But it is remarkable to look back in time and see how people consider the potential for this problem to exist, before science had proven it out. We sometimes forget that our knowledge is built on many many different precursors and actions that were taken before we came to be. Humanity learns its lessons from the people that come before it and the actions that they take. Sometimes they learn those lessons quickly, and sometimes they learned those lessons very slowly, whether they are trying to understand lead poisoning or come up with better egg nog recipes. This is one of the reasons why history is so important for us to study, not only do we get to learn some of the items from the past to avoid making the same mistakes, we get to learn how people in the past recognize the problem and dealt with it so that we can recognize and deal with new problems today.

  Technorati tags: Bright’s Disease, Lead Poisoning History
• THE VERMIFORM APPENDIX
  
  

  The section of the book is supports chart number two is about to come to a close

  .  The next few sections are short simple and mostly to the point.  The author doesn’t seem to dwell on the topics with excessive words.  In general many of these areas discuss a number of organs are actually fairly important and it’s rather odd that the author gave them so little attention compared to the drivel that the author used for complete nonsense.  So here we go…

  The chart brings into view the location and form of that wonderful little organ known as the Vermiform (wormlike) Appendix (appendage).  It is an appendage of the Caecum, or lower bowel.  Its uses as a bowel appendage have never been established.  It occurs in other animals besides man.  Notwithstanding its diminutive size and uselessness as an organ is the seat of that most painful and dangerous disease called Appendicitis, which was formerly attributed to the presence of some foreign body, is a grape-seed, lodged within.  But it has been found inflammation of the Appendage may arise from numerous other causes.  Many doctors insist that a surgical operation — that is, the entire removal of it with knife — is the proper curative agent, especially in acute cases.  But others insist that the knife is too frequently used, and that the disease, if taken in time, is quite surely curable by other means.

   

  Will a hundred years from the date of this book, we still don’t know too much about appendix.  However removal by surgery does say to be the most common form of curing this problem.  A hundred years ago before antibiotics have been discovered, surgeries were much more dangerous and it is readily apparent why scientists and doctors would have considered alternate methods of curing appendicitis.

  If you’re looking for something funny, do a quick Google search on cures for appendicitis and you’ll still find some peculiar notions of how to cure the problem.

• The Pancreas, or "Sweetbread"
  
  

  The Pancreas, or “Sweetbread.”  — The pancreas, or “sweetbread,” is a single glandular organ, situated transversely across the upper and back part of the abdomen, on a level with the last dorsal spine bone.  It is of an irregular, elongated form, from six to 8 inches in length, an inch and a half in breadth, and from a half to 1 inch in thickness.  It secretes about 7 ounces daily of a slightly alkaline fluid containing the organic principle — pancreatin, which is the property of changing the starchy food into sugar.  Whilst it has this power, yet its chief work in the digestive process seems to be the breaking up of the fat globules into myriad of my new particles which mix freely with water, and thereby promote their absorption by the lacteals.

  _____

  This section definitely exhibits a lack of understanding of the workings of the pancreas.  It’s not too far off and its description and characteristic described within it are not too far off.  You can can understand where they were going with their logic based on what they were observing.  I suppose if someone were to cut open some golf balls, they might as them that the plastic white shell is there to protect the rubber bands inside from the bludgeon of the golf club.  That’s not incorrect but it’s not exactly the purpose either.