Excerpt from Yellow Fever; Its Nature, Cause, Prevention and Cure: The Fever, as an Epidemic, Checked in a Day or Two; As a Disease, Cured in an Hour or Two
Man, or animal life, is equally dependent on the atmosphere over him as on the earth under him. The latter aż'ords him a resting-place and produces the materials of his nutrition; the former also sub serves the double purpose of converting his food into nutriment, and of eliminating from his person the portion used for the purposes of the organism. Animal life, nicely balanced between these sources, suż'ers if either predominate, and consists of two żuids ever passing between them. These żuids are - one, that of composition derived from the food, and intended for growth and nutrition the other, that of decomposition, derived from the ruins of the body, or that. Portion of it which has been expended in the production of life, or the phenomena of life. These currents ever żowing, the one in wards for nutrition, the other outwards to be eliminated from the system, pass through the lungs, where the atmospheric air, meeting both at the same time, imposes on them the double function of con verting one into nutriment, and of effecting the removal of the other. This atmospheric action being indispensable, life may be truly said to be as dependent on it as on the material of nutrition. For these żuid: the lungs may be considered the passage whereby the one eu ters and the other escapes. In the adult they are equal in quantity, as one is intended to replace the other - that of nutrition intended to supply the loss sustained to produce life. A due proportion must exist between their united stream and the quantity of air received into the lungs to meet them, as without the atmospheric agency the composing żuid could not enter the system with impunity, nor could that consisting of the decayed portion of the body escape; it should remain and return into the system - a circumstance of dangerous and fatal results.
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