The ocean as a health-resort : A handbook of practical information as to sea-voyages for the use of tourists and invalids / by William S. Wilson.

  • Wilson, William Samuel.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ocean as a health-resort : A handbook of practical information as to sea-voyages for the use of tourists and invalids / by William S. Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    varied in their manifestations that it is only possible to speak of them generally. It may, however, be stated broadly that for all those anomalous affections of the nervous system that are not accompanied by any actual disease of the brain or spinal cord, but which are often dependent either upon mental causes or derangement of the digestive organs, we have in a sea voyage a most valuable and successful mode of treatment. In fact, there are no cases in which, as a rule, the effects of sea life are more strikingly beneficial than in these. The change of scene, the different mode of life, and the varied social conditions, usually exercise the most cheering influence, not only upon the bodily health, but also (which is equally important in complaints of this class) upon the mental state ; so that the nervous patient, after a month or two at sea, is often altogether a different being from w^hat he was when he sailed. With regard to the more serious diseases of the nervous system, such as paralysis and epilepsy, it is necessary to speak much more guardedly; and it is only after all the circumstances of such a case have been carefully weighed by the medical men in attendance, that it will be possible to form a decided opinion as to the advisability of a sea voyage. Scrofulous affeotions of joints and all kindred affections may, in certain stages, be most successfully treated by means of a sea voyage. It would of course be inadvisable to send a patient to sea w^hile suffering from the more acute forms of joint disease, as the constant surgical atten- tion and the many appliances and comforts required by the sufferer could scarcely be obtained on board ship. But when the more active symptoms have subsided, and, as is so often the case, the disease assumes a chronic form, the slow and tedious convalescence may, in suitable cases, be wonderfully hastened by a sea voyage of some duration.