There are no beverages which the vulgar misapply more than their frescos. The most approved of these, as tamarinds and whey, or the juice of the apple and quince, &c. diffused in water and sweetened with sugar, are sometimes so long continued with a view of cooling and purifying the blood, that they finally relax and weaken the stomach; of which there are heard many complaints. Again, iced water, or iced acidulated frescos, are frequently misapplied in the common acute diseases of the country when the patients are in a free sweat; for, by suddenly checking a salutary perspiration, very bad consequences may follow: but this, though a well-known fact, is too often overlooked.
VIII. Acido sobre la leche es malo.—It is particularly worthy of notice that, shortly before or after milk happens to be taken pure as a drink, or mixed up in some culinary form as an article of diet, it is believed that no acid can be safely received into the stomach; it being thought necessary that the interval between these incompatible ingredients should be seven hours at least.
In illustration of the fact here stated, it may be mentioned that we were once called to see a lady in Lima who had been ailing for about a twelvemonth; and, on inquiring why she had delayed her cure so long, her reply was—
“A year ago, on my arrival from Valparaiso, I called in Dr. ——, a French physician, who ordered me to confine myself to a rice and milk diet alternated with lemonade. I felt so greatly shocked at this gentleman’s extraordinary error in prescribing such treatment, which every one knows to be most hurtful, not only to the infirm, but to the sound and healthy, that I resolved at the time to leave my complaints to nature, rather than expose my life to the greater indiscretion of some other doctor of less fame.”
In this instance the error, for which the French physician was blamed, consisted in his having overlooked the popular rule universal in Peru, and probably not unknown in Chile, that “acido sobre la leche es malo,” viz. that acid after milk is hurtful.
According to this rule in Peruvian dietetics, it would be considered little short of poisonous to use milk or cream with any sort of fruit, jam, or preserve containing the least quantity of acid. And here it may be noticed, that in their own preserves, they completely destroy the rich and distinguishing flavour of the fruit by an excess of sugar, just as they annihilate, in very bad taste, the peculiar and natural fragrance of their finest flowers by sprinkling upon them foreign and artificial perfumes.
IX. Los olores son malos para las recien paridas.—It is one of the social customs of Peru, sometimes attended with great inconvenience, that friends and visitors, moved by feelings of kindness, crowd into the rooms of the sick, when not perhaps in a fit state to enjoy company or conversation.
During their confinement ladies are not sufficiently exempted from this friendly intrusion, or neighbourly attention. The only restraint imposed upon those who visit a lady on such an occasion is, that they do not enter her apartment with flowers or perfumes; nor are the attendants permitted to introduce censers with the fumes of burning incense, as is customary at other times. Thus, it is acknowledged that “Los olores son malos para las recien paridas,” viz. that perfumes are injurious to women during their confinement; and they certainly are so, for they are frequently observed to give rise to fainting, convulsions, or other bad consequences. These precautions all who visit or wait upon the sick are strict in observing; and so much the more, as it is customary for females in every rank to use perfumes on their dress, and to decorate their heads with flowers for evening visits: a practice in which the woolly-haired negress and mulatta greatly excel, as they love to adorn their stunted curls with flowers of aroma and jessamine.
Parturient women are very subject to a sensation of languor and exhaustion at stomach, attended with a feeling of faintness, which they call “fatiga.” On ordinary occasions, when this feeling or sensation is experienced by females not similarly situated, it is usual to resort to cordials and odoriferous draughts containing lavender, hartshorn, &c. and also to stimulating embrocations applied over the seat of the stomach, which usually consist of a camphorated mixture, or perhaps Cologne water, and other such remedies applied in common cases of weakness and faintness referred to the stomach; but, under the circumstances to which our rule refers, all applications of this sort are inadmissible.
When there is a feeling of sickness and faintness, with a disconsolate sensation (called “un desconsuelo”) at the epigastrium or scrobiculus cordis, they are allowed on all occasions to apply to the stomach, as a popular remedy with the matrons, a bit of warm toast, or the breast of a fowl sprinkled over with powdered cinnamon and moistened with wine, or, as it is vernacularly expressed, “la pechuga de gallina con vino y canela;” and they agree that this application, which possesses a great deal of their confidence, commonly produces the best effects.
X. Tomar agua fria encima de colera.—To drink cold water immediately after a fit of anger, which is the meaning of the words in our text, is a frequent cause of ailment, and one which the practitioner every day hears of as the origin of the worst cases of visceral obstructions or hepatic disease. Unfortunately, the occasions of such attacks are of ordinary occurrence; for the temper of those who suffer from them is rarely under proper control, and, as a necessary consequence of the existing state of society, provocations to anger are common in every situation.
We were once consulted by a curate of an irritable disposition, and an epicure in his taste, on account of an induration and very prominent enlargement of the liver, which some time after ended in a fatal abscess. This gentleman assigned, as the exciting cause of his malady, his having drunk cold water when angry, or on occasion of a quarrel he had with his cook, a Zamba girl, who we may suppose must have spoiled some favourite sauce.
This was the first time we were consulted on an ailment said to arise from drinking cold water when angry. But afterwards, as we had engaged in more general practice, we were called upon to listen to very many statements of the same sort; and, on such multiplied and independent evidence, we are compelled to believe that this is indeed one of the usual causes of hepatic derangement very prevalent in Peru.
During these fits of anger the brain appears to be greatly excited, and the flow of blood to it increased; and the liver, which readily sympathises with the brain in our mental states of angry emotion, seems to be at the same time gorged with blood. Under these circumstances, we think a draught of cold water operates injuriously, by creating a sudden chill within, and inducing, through the channel of sympathy between the stomach and liver, contraction of the biliary excretories, which lays the foundation of more permanent congestion and consequent inflammation, by preventing the natural relief which should arise from a free flow of bile. That the ready flow or free outlet of bile is the natural and proper medium of relief in such cases, every one has an opportunity to judge; for fits of anger are so common in Lima, that a day never passes without witnessing or hearing of their ill consequences; and the most familiar and immediate effect is a bilious disorder of the bowels, or indigestion and subsequent vomiting—just as the stomach happens to be occupied, or otherwise, during the period of mental perturbation.
We may remark, that ice and iced water are only considered safe (even by the vulgar, who use them daily with a view to restrain the excessive flow of bile consequent on an angry or choleric fit,) when they are given after the violence of the commotion is over, and after the stomach, if it happen to be loaded, has, by drinking warm water or otherwise, been freed of its contents; but in hot weather, when the skin is more relaxed, and the bilious secretion more plentiful and redundant than common, ices are much used, and iced water forms the usual drink at the hour of meals.
We meet with persons who never experience the smallest annoyance or approach to anger, without being affected by some corresponding movement in the bowels; and others are never known to get warm in earnest discussion without feeling some derangement at the stomach, or showing on the following day a white or furred tongue. In truth, the delicacy of the digestive organs, or that mobility by which their functions are so easily affected by mental emotions, is quite extraordinary; and, as the daily repair and due sustenance of the whole frame depends