Lectures on auto-intoxication in disease, or, Self-poisoning of the individual / by Ch. Bouchard ; translated, with a preface, by Thomas Oliver.

Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on auto-intoxication in disease, or, Self-poisoning of the individual / by Ch. Bouchard ; translated, with a preface, by Thomas Oliver. 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.

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    inution of the appetite and of digestion, and, in consequence, increase of emaciation. Nevertheless, it is a necessary method under certain circumstances. We ought to lay it down as a principle that we should never introduce an additional meal into the stomach when the previous one has not been digested. Five hours after ingestion the presence of food in the stomach is pathological, and from the sixth hour onward there will occur in this alimentary mass anomalous fermentation. Beyond the seventh hour the alimentary residue will undergo exclusively acid or putrid fermentation. When, therefore, rational signs or exploratory catheterization shall have established stagnation of the alimentary residue in the stomach, there will be formal reasons for evacuating it. Then we can leave the stomach to rest for two hours, to recover itself, so to speak. Patients undergoing lavage ought to have only two meals per diem. At the same time you should make antisepsis; but, in order to attain this end, no liquid is necessary. We cannot introduce h^'drochloric acid into an empty stomach, especially as, in these cases of putrid stagnation, there exists already upon the greater curvature punctated hjemorrhages and ulceration of the mucous membrane. But there is no inconvenience whatever in intro- ducing iodoform (in pill), creasote, or nitrate of silver, which maj^ be useful in overcoming p3rosis. This extremely painful sj^mptom yields too, generally speaking, after a few da}^s of regimen, without the emplo3ment of medicines. When pain is such that, in spite of the stoicism which you would like to inspire in your patient, it is necessary to intervene to give him immediate relief, we can neutralize the corrosive acids which cause such great pain by means of sodium bicarbo- nate, prepared chalk, calcined magnesia, charcoal, to all of which may be added a small quantity of opium or combined with chloroform-water, which relieves pain and checks fermenta- tion ; finally, cocaine may render ‘Some service in diminishing the sensibility of the mucous membrane. When ulceration of the stomach supervenes, the therapeutic indications are those laid down by Cruveilhier. The patient is then in a grave con- dition, having reached a very advanced stage of the illness. In making an abstract of the cases in which patients come