The philosophy of eating. By Albert J. Bellows, M.D.

IRON IS POISONOUS.

161

Being less important than phosphorus, the penalties
for attempting to introduce it in any other way are less
severe and less manifest, but are still sufficiently apparent to corroborate my position.
Dr. J. Francis Churchill, a French author, who has
given great attention to the effects of different mineral.
elements on the human system, in an article headed
"Danger of Iron in Consumption and Chlorosis," says,
that M. Trousseau, another very celebrated French
physician, whose authority in this country to-day is as
high as that of any man living, has carefully investigated the effects of iron, and from a synopsis of a
report of these investigations he makes the following
quotations: "M. Trousseau has just given utterance
to an authoritative and positive statement, which will,
no doubt, surprise the profession everywhere. He
declares that iron in any form, given in chlorotic affections, to patients in whom the consumptive diathesis
exists, invariably fixes the diathesis, and hastens the
development of the tubercles. The iron may induce a
factitious return to health; the physician may flatter
himself that he has corrected the chlorotic condition
of his patient; but to his surprise, he will find the
patient soon after fall into a phthisical state, from
which there is no return. This result, or at least its
hastening, M. Trousseau attributes to the iron. The
assertion is a most startling one. M. Trousseau
is nevertheless so certain of what he says, that he
denounces the administration of iron in chlorosis as
criminal in the highest degree." (The Italics are as in
11