Rickets and Flux

Let us return to the health of early Methodists and treatments from the two leading health care books of the 18th century: Primitive Physick by John Wesley and Domestic Medicine by William Buchan, MD.

Rickets
This whole family has rickets, which is caused by a deficiency of Vitamin D, which is needed for the absorption of calcium, which helps in bone growth.  Our largest source of Vitamin D is in milk products.  City children in the 18th century not only would not have had milk, but they would have not been exposed to sun (which helps in Vitamin D absorption) because of dark rooms and pollution (Waller, 100).  This photo was taken in 1901 (Source: Wellcome Library, London).
Buchan writes, "One cause of rickets is diseased parents.  Mothers of weak relaxed habit, who neglect exercise, and live upon weak watery diet, can neither be expected to bring forth strong and healthy children, or be able to nurse them, after they are brought forth.  Accordingly we find, that the children of such women generally die of the rickets, the scrophula [see tomorrow's post], consumptions, or such like diseases.  Children begotten by men in the decline of life, who are subject to the gout, the gravel, or other chronic diseases, or who have been often affected with the venereal disease in their youth, are likewise very liable to the rickets.  Bad nursing is the chief cause of this disease[, ... b]ut children suffer oftner by want of care in nurses than want of food."  His recommendation was to provide a "wholesome nourishing diet, suited to the age and strength of the patient, open dry air, and sufficient exercise.  ... [W]e would recommend the cold bath, especially in the warm season." (King/Buchan, 129-130.)
Wesley simply states, "Wash the child every morning in cold water." (Wesley, Physick, 92.)

Dysentery (flux)
A form of diarrhea caused by inflammation of the intestine due to infection, dysentery could kill within hours or days.  People at the time had no understanding of replacing lost fluids or electrolytes.

"A looseness, in many cases, is not to be considered a disease, but rather as a salutary evacuation," instructs Buchan. "It ought therefore never to be stopped, unless when it continues too long, or evidently weakens the patient.  Treatment:  From whatever cause a looseness proceeds, the diet ought to consist of rice boiled with milk, and flavoured with cinnamon; rice-jelly; sago [a type of starch] with red port; and the lighter sorts of flesh-meat roasted ... Medicine: A diarrhoea, or looseness, which proceeds from violent passions or affections of the mind, must be treated with the greatest caution.  Vomits in this case are highly improper.  Nor are purges safe.  Opiates, and other antispasmodic medicines, are most proper.  [Still used today with IV fluid replacement.]  Ten or twelve drops of liquid laudanum may be taken in a cup of valerian or penny-royal tea every eight or ten hours, till the symptoms abate.  Ease, cheerfulness, and tranquillity of mind, are here of the greatest importance.  For dysenteries which are not of long standing, take simple cinnamon-water and common water, of each three ounces; spirituous cinnamon-water, an ounce and a half; Japonic confection, half an ounce.  Mix them.  After the necessary evacuations, a spoonful or two of this mixture may be taken every four hours, interposing every second or third day a dose of rhubarb." (King/Buchan, 67-68.)
Wesley had several suggestions using ingredients I don't know, but here are the ones I understood:
"365.  [Wesley numbered his treatments.]  Apply a suppository of linen dipt in Aqua Vitae [distilled wine].
366.  Or, drink cold water, as largely as possible, taking nothing else till the flux stops.
367.  Or, take a large apple, and at the top pick out all the core, and fill up the place with a piece of honey-comb; (the honey being strained out,) toast the apple in embers, and eat it, and this will stop the flux immediately:
368.  Or, grated rhubarb, as much as lies on a shilling [a coin], with half as much of grated nutmeg, in a glass of white wine, at lying down every other night; tried [which means Wesley or somebody he knew had tried the remedy and recommended it].
369.  Or, take four drops of laudanum, and apply to the belly a poultice [a pad] of wormwood and red roses boiled in milk.
370.  In a Dysentery, the worst of all fluxes, feed on rice, saloup [?], sago, and sometimes beef-tea; but no flesh [meat].
371.  To stop it, take a spoonful of suet melted over a slow fire.  Do not let blood.
372.  A person was cured in one day, by feeding on rice-milk, and sitting a quarter of an hour in a shallow tub, having in it warm water three inches deep. -- See Extract from Dr. Tissot, page 125 [one of the medical books Wesley quoted]."  (Wesley, Physic, 67-68.)