Signs of the Tongue

From Houghtalings Handbook of Useful Information ©1889

The tongue is the indicator of the system. A white coated tongue indicates febrile distuurbance; a brown, moist tongue indicates disordered digestion or overloaded passages; a brown dry tongue indicates depressed vitality, as in typhoid conditions and blood poisoning; a red, moist tongue indicates debility, as from exhausting discharges; a red, dry tongue indicates pyrexia, or any inflammatory fever; a "strawberry" tongue, with prominent papillae, indicates scarlet fever, or rotheln; a red glazed tongue indicates debility, with want of assimilative power of digestion; a tremulous, flabby tongue indicates delirium tremens; hesitancy in protruding the tongue indicates concussion of the brain.