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Symptoms (Sharp pain in the bowels)

Sharp pain in the bowels, which shoots round the navel, and which is increased by pressure, sudden loss of strength, vomiting of dark-colored, sometimes excrementitious matter, costiveness, small, quick, and hard pulse, highcolored urine. Distinguish it from colic, by the pain being increased by pressure, whereas in colic it is relieved by it.

Treatment. This is another of those formidable diseases that require the most actively reducing measures in the onset. From ten to twenty ounces of blood ought to be taken away at once, and the patient placed in a warm bath, after which a large blister should be applied to the belly.

Emollient and laxative clysters may be injected from time to time, and if the vomiting and irritability of the stomach permit it to be retained, give a dose of castor oil. If this be rejected too, the oil mixture No. 1. This, however, though one of great importance, is a secondary consideration; to subdue the inflammation, by bleeding or leeching, being the great object. The diet should consist of barley or rice-water only. If in the latter stages of the disease, when the inflammation has somewhat subsided, an obstinate costiveness be found to resist all the usual remedies, dashing cold water over the belly will sometimes succeed.

Remember that this complaint frequently runs its course in a day or two, and that, unless treatment be promptly employed in the very beginning, mortification and death will ensue. If a strangulated rupture occasion the disease, the same, and, if possible, still stronger reasons exist for bleeding, previously to any attempts at reduction. When certain quantities are mentioned, it is always to be understood that they are applicable to robust men. Common sense will dictate the necessity of diminishing them, as the patient may fall more or less short of this description. If strangulated rupture be feared, surgical aid should be early obtained.

No. 1. Oil Mixture. -The yolk of one egg; castor oil, 2 ounces. Mix them well, and add lavender compound, 2 drachms; sugar, 1 ounce; water, 5 ounces. Mix them well. The dose is a tablespoonful every hour till it operates, or half the quantity at once; the remainder, in divided doses, if no passage is obtained after a space of four hours.

Cholera Morbus Symptoms. A violent vomiting and purging of bile, preceded by a pain in the stomach and bowels; quick, weak, and fluttering pulse; heat, thirst, cold sweats, hiccups, and sometimes death in a few hours.

Treatment. Bladders or bottles containing hot water should be applied to the feet, and flannel cloths wrung out of hot spirits, or a mustard plaster, be laid over the stomach. When it is supposed that the stomach is sufficiently cleared, give two grains of solid opium in a pill, and repeat half the quantity every few hours, as the case may require. If the weakness be very great, and the spasms so alarming as to cause | by some mild purgative, as castor oil or rhubarb. a fear of the immediate result, the quantity of opium may be increased carefully. If the pill will not remain in the stomach, give eighty or ninety drops of laudanum, in a tablespoonful of thin starch, by clyster, and repeat it as often as may be necessary. Fifty or sixty drops of laudanum in a small quantity of strong mint tea, Bathing the feet in warm water, and copious draughts of boneset tea, will be found of great benefit if it originate from suppressed perspiration. For the same purpose, also, from six to ten grains of Dover's powder may be taken at night, being careful not to drink much for some time after it. If worms are the cause, treat it as dior the effervescing draught, will frequently suc-rected. When it is occasioned by mere weakness, ceed in allaying the irritation. If all these means fail, apply a blister to the stomach. For thirst, give ice; a little at once. To complete the recovery, and to guard against a second attack, a complete casing of flannel is requisite, together with the use of vegetable bitters and tonics. Persons subject to this disease should be cautious in their diet and avoid exposure to moist, cold air.

Dysentery.

Symptoms. Fever; frequent small stools, accompanied by griping, bearing down pains, the discharge consisting of pure blood or blood and matter, sometimes resembling the shreds or washings of raw flesh; a constant desire to go to stool. Distinguish it from diarrhœa or lax by the fever, griping pains, and the constant desire to evacuate the bowels, by the discharge itself being blood, or matter streaked with blood, etc.

Treatment. As dysentery or bloody flux is almost always in this country connected with considerable inflammation, it will be proper, in some cases, to bleed the patient at the beginning of the attack. Whether it be thought prudent to bleed or not, an early dose of castor oil, with clysters of the same, and the application of blisters to the belly should never be omitted. The stomach and bowels may be cleansed by barley or rice-water taken by the mouth and in clysters. As soon as this is effected give half a grain of opium with half a grain of ipecac every two, three or four hours. The diet should consist of gum arabic dissolved in milk, arrow-root jelly, barley-water, etc. Clysters of the same articles, with the addition of an ounce of olive oil and twenty drops of laudanum, may be likewise injected. Towards the latter end of the complaint, opium and astringents are proper, and indeed necessary. I say the latter end of it, for in the commencement they would be hurtful. In this stage of it also, if a severe tenesmus (or constant desire to go to stool) remains, anodyne clysters, as of forty to eighty drops of laudanum in an ounce of starch will be found useful, or what is more effectual, a couple of grains of opium placed just within the fundament. The various astringents which are proper for dysentery in its latter stages, are found below, and may be used, with port wine and water, as a drink:

Astringents. Acetate of lead 1 scruple; opium 10 grains. Divide into twenty pills. Take one every two, three or four hours.

Tincture of catechu 2 ounces. Take two teaspoonsful in a little port wine every hour, or oftener if required; or, Extract of logwood 20 grains; cinnamom water 2 ounces; tincture of kino 1 drachm; sugar 2 drachms. To be taken at once.

Diarrhea or Lax.

Symptoms. Repeated and large discharges of a thin excrementitious matter by stool, sometimes attended with griping and a rumbling noise in the bowels. and in the latter stages of it (proceed from what it may), when every irritating matter is expelled, opium, combined with astringents, is necessary as in the similar period of dysentery. The diet should consist, in the beginning, of rice, arrow-root, sago, etc., and subsequently of roasted chicken.

Weak brandy and water, or port wine and water, may accompany the chicken for a common drink.

Persons subject to complaints of this kind should defend their bowels from the action of cold by a flannel shirt; the feet and other parts of the body should also be kept warm.

No. 1. Chalk chalk 2 drachms; loaf sugar 1 drachm. Rub them well together in a mortar, and add gradually of mucilage of gum arabic 1 ounce; water 6 ounces; lavender compound 2 drachms; laudanum 30 drops. The dose is a tablespoonful every hour, or oftener.

Shake the bottle well before pouring out the liquid, or the chalk will be at the bottom.

Colic.

Symptoms. Violent shooting pain that twists round the navel; the skin of the belly drawn into balls; obstinate costiveness; sometimes a vomiting of excrement. Distinguish it from inflammation of the bowels by the pain being relieved by pressure, and from other diseases by the twisting round the navel, the skin being drawn into balls, etc.

Treatment. The first thing to be done in this disease is to give a dose of oil or magnesia with laudanum in a little peppermint water, and apply a mustard poultice over or below the navel. Forty, sixty or seventy drops of laudanum may be given at once, as the pain is more or less violent, and the dose may be repeated in a half hour, or less time, if ease is not procured. During this time, if the first doses of laudanum are found ineffectual in reducing the pain, and it is very great, eighty or ninety drops may be given as a clyster in a gill of gruel or warm water. One great rule in the treatment of colic, where the pain is excessive, is to continue the use of opium in such increased doses as will relieve it. When this result is obtained, castor oil by the mouth and clyster must be employed to open the bowels.

In bilious colic, when there is vomiting of bile, the effervescing draught, with thirty drops of laudanum, may be taken to quiet the stomach, to which flannels wrung out of warm spirits may be applied. When the vomiting has abated, the oil mixture or the pills below should be taken until a free discharge is procured. If, notwithstanding our endeavors, the disease proceeds to such an extent as to induce a vomiting of excrement, the tobacco clyster must be tried, or an attempt be made to fill the intestines with warm water. This is done by forcibly injecting it in large quantities, at the same time the patient swallows as much as he is able. In this way, with a proper syringe, two gallons have been successfully introduced.

In all cases of colic, when there is obstinate costiveness, an examination of the fundament should be made with the finger. If there are any hard, dry pieces of excrement there, they may be removed either by the finger or the handle of a spoon. Treatment. If the disease arises from cold, a few doses of the chalk mixture, No. 1, will frequently put an end to it. It is, however, sometimes necessary to begin with an emetic of twenty grains of ipecacuanha, and then open the bowels | Examination of the groin and navel should also be made, to see if there be a rupture which may | to eight or more inches. If the tincture of aloes be strangulated.

Those who are subject to colic should avoid fermented liquors and much vegetable food; be always well clothed, and take care not to expose themselves to cold and wet. The bowels should never be allowed to remain costive.