A treatise on diseases of the nervous system / by L. Harrison Mettler.

  • Mettler, Lee Harrison.
Date:
1905, ©1904
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on diseases of the nervous system / by L. Harrison Mettler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    most of the time, to receive a few friends only, to pass the time chat- ting and getting acquainted with the nurse and otherwise becoming famihar with the new surroundings. During this first week the bowels are freely moved daily with calomel or enemata; the kidneys are slightly stimulated with diuretin; and the diet is quite closely limited to milk and broths given in small quantity every hour or two. Sleep is enforced by nightly doses of trional or sulphonal. A certain amount of psychic suggestion is made upon each visit to the patient, which visits are daily or every other day at first. This is to inspire confidence, to increase the docility and hopefulness. At the end of the first week or ten days of this preliminary treat- ment the patient usually recognizes that her physician can dominate the disease, for she finds she has slept and that though she is apparently more collapsed and ready to take to her bed, she is slightly less irritable and melancholy. Now the patient is ordered to keep her bed constantly. The calo- mel and diuretin are stopped and only the morning enemata continued; the trional and sulphonal are gradually diminished each night; and a slightly more generous dietary is allowed. By this time the particu- lar requirements of the case are so well revealed that a daily program is carefully written out and left with the nurse to execute. The follow- ing program suggested by Dr. John K. Mitchell may be taken as an illustration: 7 a. m. Cocoa. Cool sponge bath with rough rub and toilet for the day. 8 a. m. Milk. Breakfast. Rest an hour after. 10 a. m. 8 oz. peptonized milk. 11 a. m. Massage. 12 m. Milk or soup. Reading aloud by the nurse. I :30 p. m. Dinner. Rest an hour. 3 '30 P- ^- 8 02- peptonized milk. 4 p. m. Electricity. 6 p. m. Supper with milk. 8 p. m. Reading aloud by nurse one-half hour. 9 p. m. Light rubbing by nurse with drip sheet. 8 oz. malt extract with meals, tonic after meals. 8.0Z. peptonized milk with biscuit at bedtime and a glass of milk during the night if desired. Such a program as the above should never be adopted as a routine for all cases. Its chief value is in giving the approximate time for each of the manoeuvres and in forming a skeleton ground plan whereon special indications may be made to meet special requirements. Not the least advantage in the use of such a program is the regularity and system which it establishes. In regard to the dietary suggestions for such a program, it should be well understood that a forced nutrition is the desideratum and that