On the utility and safety of the fumigating bath : as a remedial agent in complaints of the skin, joints, rheumatism, gout, and disorder of the digestive organs ... / by Jonathan Green.

  • Green, Jonathan, 1788?-1864.
Date:
1847 (
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the utility and safety of the fumigating bath : as a remedial agent in complaints of the skin, joints, rheumatism, gout, and disorder of the digestive organs ... / by Jonathan Green. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    75/96 (page 75)
    She thought she had gained flesh and strength during her passage to England. She had the usual powder of calomel and jalap in full dose, and was directed to take a table spoon¬ ful of castor oil, morning and evening, with¬ out interruption, unless she found it too much. The castor oil was a favourite medicine with her, suiting her better, she said, than any other, and for two years she had been in the habit of taking it once, or oftener, in a week, from necessity, notwithstanding she took other medicines and means with the same view. Little effect was produced from the powder or the oil for the first three days ; after that time, such a quantity of foul dis¬ charge was produced as to astonish her. She was directed, notwithstanding this, to go on with the oil regularly, but in diminished doses; a dessert spoonful was substituted for the table spoonful, night and morning.* * It did not produce purging, but kept the bowels suf¬ ficiently soluble; and this medicine will do it in most' cases of obstinate constipation, if taken regularly even in teaspoonful doses at night going to bed; and generally the warm tea in the morning causes a movement, and is much better than taking a strong dose every now and then,which forcibly hurries the bowels, leaving them, after this forced operation, confined as before. The bowels, as any other organ after forced exertion, require, and will have, rest to recover;—hence the constipation that usually follows a single purgative dose of medicine.