Volume 1

Von Ziemssen's Handbook of general therapeutics.

Date:
1885-1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Von Ziemssen's Handbook of general therapeutics. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    406/442 (page 380)
    may act very injuvionsly, since it must increase the mass of the blood aiid tüe alcohol acts as a stimulant. Ilerzeusteiu Insists on the necessity of prescribing the particular kind of Jcouimss, siuce the weak form will generally cau.se a liquid stool, while the stronger often tends to constipation. It is not possible to fix a limit to the treatment: it should be drunk as long and as much as possible. As to the disputed qiiestion of the advantages pos&essed by the Ssamara district whether as regards climate or pasturage, he is in favour of the Steppes' Koumiss in and by itself demands no particular diet; this must be determined by the State of the stomach. It is advisable not to take any large quautity • of flmds, so as not to limit the consumption of koumiss. There is sufficient alcohol m koumiss to render the use of other alcohohc drinks inexpedient.i Schermasanoff 2 sees in koumiss a nutritious food, but considers a six weeks'course quite insufficient; it should be drunk as long as possible. Without denying the utility of the koumiss eure in other places than Ssamara he gives the preference to the Steppes. He estimated the proportions of fat and of sugar in mare's milk, and his figures closely approach those of Biel, for he found the sugar to be 6 per cent. and the fat 2-9 per cent. He further insists on the necessity of making a distinction between the weak and the stroug koumiss, the latter containing more alcohol, carbonic and lactic acids, but less sugar than the weak. The diet during the koumiss eure should be piain; alcoholic drinks ■and fat foods should be avoided. Beginning with small doses gulped down, one may rise to 6 or 10 bottles daily if so much can be borne. The effects of the treatment are best seen in the gain of weight. The figures fuvnished by SchermasanoiF show a gain of 2 kilos. in a week whüe the patients were drinking on an average 5 bottles daily. Eight patients exhibited after two months of the treatment an enormous increaseof weight, amounting to as much as 11 to 13 kilos., while they had drunk from 5 to 10 bottles daily. The writer himself drank as mauy as 7 bottles a day for 3i months, and his weight increased 7 kilos.; during the ' Ät the end of his pamphlet Herzenstein describes the best koumiss establishments, having ]3reviously dwelt more on their defects than on their merits. In the most celebrated—those of Annaeff, Postnikoff, Chembubatoff, and UstinofE—the living, iucluding koumiss, costs about löl. montlily, but there are others vvhere one can exist on 6Z. a month. ScliermasanoflE, ' On the Practice of the Koumiss Cure,' Journ. of Hijdro- therajnj, 1881, No. 1 (Eussian). This author lias for several yeai's been prac- tically acquainted with koumiss, and is pleased to find it beginning to take its merited place in theräpeutios, but laments at the same time that koumiss establishments scarcely pay at all. The number of jjatients who resort thilher yearly he estimatcs at about 1,500. He names as the best those of Annaeff, l'ostnikoff, and Chembubatoff, all not far from S.samara.