Volume 1

A dictionary of medicine : including general pathology, general therapeutics, hygiene, and the diseases of women and children / by various writers ; edited by Richard Quain ; assisted by Frederick Thomas Roberts and J. Mitchell Bruce.

Date:: 1894

Credit: A dictionary of medicine : including general pathology, general therapeutics, hygiene, and the diseases of women and children / by various writers ; edited by Richard Quain ; assisted by Frederick Thomas Roberts and J. Mitchell Bruce. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$is imperative. Hypodermic injections of morphine, and large doses of digitalis, are recommended by many authorities; but the writer has seen great harm attend their free exhibition. The cautious inhalation of chloroform vapour has occasionally cut short an attack by inducing sleep, but it much more frequently fails. Mechanical restraint is seldom, if ever, necessary, if the patient be properly nursed and attended to. All methods of self-destruction must be carefully guarded against. A padded room, when required and available, is of the utmost benefit. The great desideratum in chronic alco- holism is to substitute an easily-digested and nourishing diet for the alcoholic stimu- lants, which can then be safely dispensed with altogether. The practitioner's judg- ment, and his knowledge of the cuisine, are very important in the management of these cases. Strong meat-soups, and good speci- mens of the concentrated preparations of meat, are of great value. The strictly medi- cinal treatment will consist in the adminis- tration of bitter tonics, such as mix vomica, quinine in small doses, calumba, or gentian; with carminatives, such as spirit of chloro- form, armoraeia, and capsicum. Alkalis, effervescent mixtures, and hydrocyanic acid are peculiarly useful if the stomach be irrit- able. The condition of the liver and bowels should be carefully regulated. Bromide of potassium is in general the best sedative to employ against the insomnia, though chloral hydrate is more certain; but the latter shoidd only be given occasionally, lest the patient acquire the habit of frequently re- sorting to it. In long-standing cases, cod- liver oil, arsenic in small doses, and oxide of zinc have all done good, but they require a long and protracted administration. Phos- phorus has been of no use whatever in the cases in which the writer has tried it; but small doses of the more easily assimilable preparations of iron are occasionally well borne, and are then most useful. The crav- ing for drink, if urgent, may be checked by small doses of opium, but this drug must be exhibited with extreme caution. Judicious supervision, and, in inveterate cases, a re- sidence in a proper asylum, are the only means from which any permanent benefit can be expected. Absolute abstention from alcohol cures almost every case of alcoholic paralysis, unless it has become quite hope- less ; and massage and mild currents of elec- tricity are of service in restoring the atro- phied muscles. The treatment of insanity induced by alcoholism will not differ from that recommended in other forms, except in an enforced abstinence from its cause. John Cuenow. ALEPPO EVIL.—See Delhi Boil. ALEXANDEESBAD, in Bavaria.— Chalybeate waters and hydropathic estab- lishment. See Mineral Waters. ALGID {algidus, cold).—A word imply- ing extreme coldness of the body, used only when it arises in connexion with an internal morbid state, such as cholera, or a special form of malignant remittent fever. ALGIERS. — Warm winter climate. Mean winter temperature 61° Fah., liable to rapid changes. Heavy rains not infrequent. See Climate, Treatment of Disease by. ALIMENT.—Food or aliment furnishes the elements required for the growth and maintenance of the organism ; and, through its action with the other life factor—air, forms the source of the power manifested. The aliment of organisms belonging to the vegetable class is derived from the inorganic kingdom. Under the influence of the sun's rays the elements of inorganic principles are appropriated in such a manner as to lead to the construction of organic compounds and meet the requirements of growth. This con- stitutes the main operation of vegetable life, and in it we have the source of the aliment of animals, which can only appropriate or- ganic compounds, and which, either directly or indirectly, derive these compounds from the vegetable kingdom. As the solar energy employed in the construction of organic compounds, through the agency of the vege- table organism, becomes locked up in the compound formed, such compound represents matter combined with a definite amount of latent force. In the employment, therefore, of organic matter as aliment by animals, we have to look upon it not only as yielding the material required for the construction and maintenance of the body, but as containing and supplying the force which is evolved under various forms by the operations of animal life. Aliment constituting the source from which the several elements belonging to the bod_y are derived, it follows that, to satisfy the requirements of life, it must contain all the elements that are encountered. It is not, however, with the elements in a separate state that we have to deal, but with the pro- ducts of nature in which they are variously combined. The alimentary 2]ro(^uc^s as supplied by nature are resolvable by analysis into a variety of definite chemical compounds. These constitute the alimentary principles. Some are common to both animal and vege- table food, as, for instance, albmnin, casein, fats, &c.; others are peculiar to either the animal or vegetable kingdom. Starch, for example, is met with only in vegetable, and gelatine only in animal products. With reference to the alimentary principles, it must be understood that hi no case do they exist in natural products in an isolated form, and no single alimentary principle is capable$