Nutrition in health and disease : a contribution to hygiene and to clinical medicine / James Henry Bennet.

  • Bennet, James Henry, 1816-1891.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Nutrition in health and disease : a contribution to hygiene and to clinical medicine / James Henry Bennet. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    should be abandoned. Great benefit may frequently be derived under such circumstances from the mineral acids, nitric, hydrochloric, phosphoric, and sulphuric acids; and from vegetable bitters, such as gentian, calumba, chiretta, and quassia. These agents may be given alone or combined. I always give the acids largely diluted in water, and tell the patient to take them as a beverage, often using a glass tube to save the teeth from contact. The vegetable bitters are best administered in infusion; but to obtain the full benefit which they are capable of affording, the infusions should be taken in much larger quantities than is usual. Half a pint a day, taken in two or three doses, is not too much. The acids and bitter infusions may often be combined with advantage. Both acids and bitters act as tonics on the stomach and on the system at large, and their administration is frequently attended with considerable benefit. The effect, however, is very gradual, and they must often, therefore, be continued for some time —one, two, or three months—before the desired result can be obtained. Sedatives, such as henbane, opium and its pre- parations, belladonna, prussic acid, chloroform,— antispasmodics, such as valerian, camphor, musk, myrrh, and the ethers, act principally in subduing pain, in controlling spasm and abnormal conditions of innervation. Bismuth is often a valuable thera- peutical agent in larger doses than are usually given,