[Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and by James Emerson Tennent]@TWC D-Link book
Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and

CHAPTER I
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Those of a scrofulous diathesis need not consider it hazardous, as experience does not show that in such there is any greater susceptibility to local or constitutional disorders, or that when these are present, there is greater difficulty in their removal.
To those threatened with consumption, the island may be supposed to offer some advantages in the equability of the temperature, and the comparative quiescence of the lungs from reduced necessity for respiratory effort.

Besides, the choice of climates presented by Ceylon enables a patient, by the easy change of residence to a different altitude and temperature, avoiding the heats of one period and the dry winds of another, to check to a great extent the predisposing causes likely to lead to the development of tubercle.

This, with attention to clothing and systematic exercise as preventives of active disease, may serve to restrain the further progress though it fail to eradicate the tendency to phthibis.

But when already the formation of tubercle has taken place to any considerable extent, and is accompanied by softening, the morbid condition is not unlikely to advance with alarming celerity; and the only compensating circumstance is the diminution of apparent suffering, ascribable to general languor, and the absence of the bronchial irritation occasioned by cold humid air.
_Dyspepsia_ .-- Habitual dyspeptics, and those affected by hepatic obstructions, had better avoid a lengthened sojourn in Ceylon; but the tortures of rheumatism and gout, if they be not reduced, are certainly postponed for longer intervals than those conceded to the same sufferers in England.

Gout, owing to the great cutaneous excretion, in most instances totally disappears.
_Precautions for Health_ .-- Next to attention to diet, health in Ceylon is mainly to be preserved by systematic exercise, and a costume adapted to the climate and its requirements.


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