Surgical cases and essays / by Rushton Parker.

  • Parker, Rushton, 1847-
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Surgical cases and essays / by Rushton Parker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    72/136 (page 6)
    up griping that is capable of being discriminated after some approach to comfort has been brought about. Warm or even hot water, and hot tea, are now (as, in fact, throughout) more rationally beneficial and more acceptable, when anything at all must be taken. The abdominal griping, or other pain or discomfort, may be directly attributed to the irreducible hernia, or indirectly associated with it, by the patient So much the more easy for the medical attendant. But the patient may not know of a hernia at all, which may have for the first time come down, or may be otherwise overlooked. In obstinate constipation with persistent vomiting, it is the first duty of a medical attendant to search for a hernia, in the presence of which alone can he discover strangulation ; in the absence of which he may promptly recognise intestinal obstruction of some other form, though he may be not able to name it. In the majority of cases, if hernia be not the cause of obstruction, the latter will prove to be one of the milder and eminently curable degrees, in which rapid or at any rate sure recovery results from the prompt and total suspension of solid food (including milk, which is solid as soon as swallowed); the great limitation of watery drinks, with, if necessary, the efficient aid of morphia, of alcohol, or of both. To this must in all seriousness be added the unflinching avoidance of enemata, and even of the slightest manipulation per anum^ the speedy effect of either of which is a griping pain, a vomit, or other symptom of injurious peristalsis.