Volume 2

A manual of medical treatment, or, Clinical therapeutics / by I. Burney Yeo.

Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of medical treatment, or, Clinical therapeutics / by I. Burney Yeo. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    711/772 (page 697)
    and antiseptic mixture of chloroform and camphor; and as gastric absorption is almost abolished, we might expect this mixture to reach and disinfect the small intestines. The following is a suitable formula :— iy Chloroformi mlxxx. Spiritus camphora ... 1 aa ^ij. Spiritus ammonite aromatici J Mucilaginis acacite S1];.. Aquas menthse piperita ... ... ad gviij. Misce, fiat mistuia. Two tablespoonfuls every hour. The chloroform and camphor both yield antiseptic and anesthetic vapours, and we might hope these would have an anti-toxic and soothing effect in the small intestine; or capsules of chloroform and camphor might be given. Sir George Johnson sug- gests that turpentine, and not castor oil, should be given if there should be haemorrhage from the bowels —20 minims in mucilage every two hours, and iced water to drink. Turpentine would doubtless prove a valuable intestinal antiseptic. Treatment on these lines, in the early stage, has been found to be the most successful in the recent epi- demics in Germany, Russia, and Italy. One Russian physician began the treatment with 20 grains of calomel and an ounce of castor oil, and he reports that the mild cases recovered quickly, and so did many in the algid state. Another started with a purgative dose of calomel combined with naphthalin, and continued with smaller doses of each. In Hamburg, mild threatening cases were stopped by an initial dose of castor oil, and in more advanced stages calomel in 1^-grain doses or in repeated small doses of \ to i grain was found to answer well. In severe at- tacks, those of well-marked general intoxication, we are informed calomel was the only drug that held its own. In the reports of recent epidemics there is a general condemnation of the use of opium to arrest the diarrhoea of the early stage. Cases so treated did worse