Constipated bowels : the various causes and rational means of curen / by S.B. Birch.
- Birch, S. B. (Scholes Butler)
- Date:
- 1863
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Constipated bowels : the various causes and rational means of curen / by S.B. Birch. Source: Wellcome Collection.
162/220 page 146
![have Mag. Sulph. 3SS or 5] dissolved in it, or (somewhat more agreeable to the taste) a wine- glassful of Liq. Mag. Bicarb, may be added to it. In suggesting treatment for protracted and un- usually obstinate constipation from this special cause, viz., hepatic and hiliary derangement, I must not omit one powerful yet pleasant and safe remedy, with which I have for some years identified myself beyond any other member of our profession, and in behalf of which my paper read in July, 1859, at the annual meeting of the British Medical Associa- tion at Liverpool, may be remembered. The natu- ral reluctance of our profession to take up novel remedies in too great a hurry has, as yet, prevented the study and establishment of the therapeutic agent in question in general practice, but it may be safely affirmed that, when the subject is taken up xoarmly and actively by the majority of my professional brethen, its value will be un- appreciated only by the few who may be wilfully blind. I refer to the inhalation of oxygen gas, which, under proper exhibition, I have often found to produce an almost immediate efi'ect in constipa- tion depending upon torpid and congested Hver, with chronic derangement of the biliary secretion. My advocacy of oxygen as a valuable curative agent has always been carefully limited to its use](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20396296_0162.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
