The medical compass : containing a new and improved companion and key to the medicine chest.

  • Forsyth, J. S.
Date:
[1834]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medical compass : containing a new and improved companion and key to the medicine chest. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    Bathe the feet in warm water at night, and at bed time give 10 grains of Dover’s powder, should the dis- ease have proceeded from obstructed perspiration. Strong purgatives are improper, unless the disease pro- ceed from a tenacious acrimony adhering to the intes- tines, then Epsom or other neutral salts will be the most proper. If from poisonous substances taken into the stomach, the patient must drink plentifully of diluent liquors* with fat broths, to promote vomiting; after which a dose of castor oil, to carry the remainder downwards; the operation of which being finished, from 20 to 30 drops of the tincture of opium may be taken to allay the irritation of the bowels. A looseness that is likely to prove critical or salutary, should by no means be inconsiderately checked. A looseness is distinguished from a flux by being unattended with either inflammation, fever, contagion, or tenesmus; by the appearance of the matter evacuated; which in diarrhoea or looseness, is feculent, or mixed with alimentary matter; in the other, (dysentery or flux) mixed with blood, and putrid, and from the latter being contagious, the other not. LIVER COMPLAINTS. The symptoms which indicate an affection of the liver, the consequence of a long residence in warm climates, are, costiveness, often alternating with diarrhoea or dysentery, strong spasmodic pains about the false ribs, flatulence, and, at times, heartburn; accompanied mostly with general languor and depression altogether intoler- able and insuperable to the patient; and if he should use any particular exertion of an active nature, he sinks into a state of increased debility; or if he attempt any moderate exercise, he is overcome with fatigue, or suffers from cold or from new symptoms, the conse- quences of action accidentally increased ; and unless some effectual, and at the same time moderate, means of relief be afforded, the patient dies of some symptomatic disease which is induced; or he sinks exhausted from the primary affection of the stomach and parts con- cerned in the process of digestion. These are the