Subject: [Minutus] pthisical habit?
Can someone explain what this rubric means? I suppose it has to do
with tubercular constitution, but in what way?
Thanks,
Shannon
There are various 'habits' found in our repertories ---- dry, spare, sedentary, relaxed
phlegmatic, but phthiscal and strumous are often referred to in the pages of the older medical
books. Maybe the term we use now would be 'diathesis' --- just a thought
Found this definition of phthisical habit in an old dictionary
P hthisical
1. Pertaining to or affected with phthisis or tuberculosis.
2 . Popularly, same as Asthmatic
Phthisical Frame, Phthisical Habit ---- a long, narrow, flat chest, with depressed sternum, acute
costal angle, a fair, transparent skin, light complexion, blue eyes, winged scapulae, slender limbs.
As to internal organs, the heart is relatively small, the arteries narrow, the pulmonary artery
relatively wider than the aorta, and the lung-volume rather large.
Here is a section of a chapter from a book by ARETAUS, THE CAPPADOCIAN from the Hippocrates
collection, that mentions this 'phthisical habit' -- the accompanying text may explain it
from a section discussing persons affected with Empyema (A collection of pus in a body cavity -
especially in the lung cavity)
" There are certain symptoms common to all, and certain ones peculiar to each. A heaviness rather
than pain is a common symptom (for the lungs are insensible), weak fevers, rigor towards evening,
sweats in the remission, insomnolency, swellings in the extremities of the feet, and fingers of the
hands, which at one time abate and at another increase; uncomfortable feeling; loss of appetite;
wasting of the whole body; and if the change be prolonged, the phthisical habit is formed; for
Nature can no longer perform her office, for the digestion is not as before, nor is there the plump
habit of body; the colour dark; respiration in all cases bad, but worse in those affecting the upper
cavity; but also cough at first as long as the inflammation is urgent, when the pains also are
greater, and rigor, and heat, and watchfulness, and dyspnoa still more; pulse small, sluggish,
feeble; they are disordered in the intellect; distension of the thorax. "
A strumous habit seems to mean a strumous diathesis ---constitutional predisposition to struma,
scrofula.
'The strumous diathesis is very common, manifesting itself in glandular enlargements, abscesses,
or sores, and in ophthalmia, otorrhoea, and skin eruptions.'
and from a Herbal reference with regard to scrofula - The Complete Herbalist -- Dr. O P. Brown
(1878):
"There is scarcely any tissue or organ in the body that scrofula does not assail, and it forms the
basis, in many cases of disease, of all their virulence and stubbornness. Strumous habits are very
common, being mostly hereditary; but they may also be contracted by bad habits, or be the sequel to
low vitality or prostrating diseases. The taint is apt to become universal if in marriage the
health of either party is not considered of equal importance with affection, etc., etc. It impairs
the functions of all the organs; it renders the mental faculties more or less imbecile; it gives to
the patient a heavy, sullen, and forbidding appearance, and is destructive of all beauty of form or
sprightliness of character. It is so serious a disease that no one affected with the taint, however
slight it may be, should defer such rational treatment as will cure him of one of the grestest
enemies of mankind. "
As usual I enjoyed this search for information, as came across an amazing collection of
Hippocrates translated.
Thankyou for the opportunity
Best
Robyn
It is not enough to say that we attract what we think;
we become what we think,
and what we become we will attract. ~Ernest S. Holmes
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