A dictionary of practical medicine: comprising general pathology, the nature and treatment of diseases, morbid structures, and the disorders especially incidental to climates, to the sex, and to the different forms of life : with numerous prescriptions for the medicines recommended, a classification of diseases according to pathological principles, a copious bibliography, with references, and an appendix of approved formulae : the whole forming a library of pathology and practical medicine and a digest of medical literature (Volume 9).
- James Copland
- Date:
- 1834-59
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A dictionary of practical medicine: comprising general pathology, the nature and treatment of diseases, morbid structures, and the disorders especially incidental to climates, to the sex, and to the different forms of life : with numerous prescriptions for the medicines recommended, a classification of diseases according to pathological principles, a copious bibliography, with references, and an appendix of approved formulae : the whole forming a library of pathology and practical medicine and a digest of medical literature (Volume 9). Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
![proposed that the gas should be removed by the air-pump ; and Dr. Osborne, of Dublin, adopted this means, in the mode most likely to render the recommendation successful. After other means had failed, he introduced a gum-elastic tube of nearly three feet in length, with a button and hole at its extremity, and, having applied to it a stomach-pump, he proceeded to withdraw the gas, and was enabled to do so with few inter- ruptions, which were speedily overcome either by shifting the place of the tube in the intestine, or by injecting warm water to clear the holes by ac- cidental stoppage. In about an hour the abdo- men was reduced to nearly the natural size. — {Lond. Med. Gaz., vol. vii., p. 825.) Dr. Graves employed similar means with success in two cases.—(Lond. Med. and Surg. Journ., vol. ii., p. 781.) I had recourse to it in one case with temporary benefit, and have advised it in consul- tation in two or three instances, but in neither with permanent advantage. It should not, how- ever, be neglected, as more or less relief is pro- duced by it. In many of the more severe cases I have prescribed enemata containing the extract or confection of rue, or asafcetida, or both rue and asafcetida, and enemata with oleum ohvee and oleum terebinthincB, or the other carminative in- jections recommended for the removal of obsti- nate CONSTIPATION. 17. While the operation of these and similar means is expected, frictions over the abdomen with either of the liniments referred to in the Ap- pendix (F. 311) may be resorted to, and medi- cines may be exhibited by the month. When the tympany is not attended or caused by mechani- cal obstruction, and is to be imputed rather to a paralyzed state of the muscular coats of the ca- nal than to either constriction or strangulation, then the extract of nux vomica in small doses, or the usual carminatives, especially rue, asafcetida, capsicum, turpentine, &c, are often of service. Turpentine, either as a confection or as a draught, with the oleum olivse, or ol. ricini, on the surface of an aromatic water, or of common gin, in cases of hysterical tympany, or of spirit-drinkers, if pre- scribed with discrimination, is the most effica- cious, especially if enemata or liniments with this substance be employed also. 18. When the tympanitic distention has arisen from obstruction in the vicinity of the caecum or in the large bowels, then the injections into the latter should consist chiefly of warm, oleag- inous, and saponaceous substances. Olive oil in large quantity may be thus employed, and this oil may be taken in small and frequent doses, oleaginous frictions being also resorted to. In several instances where tympany was caused by the obstruction arising from hysterical pica—by chewing paper in two cases, by sealing-wax in one case, and by bleached wax and spermaceti in another, the obstruction was removed, in all, by these means, the causes of the disorder having been made apparent, by the numerous balls of these substances, agglutinated by the mucus of the bowels, and moulded in the cells of the colon, which were voided. 19. ii. Having removed the more urgent symp- toms, the Pathological conditions producing the tympany requires close attention and appropriate treatment. These conditions are so numerous and so different that it is impossible to state all that may be required to fulfil this intention. This is, however, the less necessary, as the circum- stances under which tympanites occurs and the pathological causes producing it, are duly con- sidered, with the treatment required for each, m the articles on Adynamic Fevers, inflammations of the intestines and of other portions of the in- testinal tube, hysterical affections, colic, ileus, and on other disorders upon which tympania is often contingent. The diverse sources of this affec- tion, and the very opposite pathological states which may occasion it, sufficiently explain the success which has sometimes followed very dif- ferent or even opposite indications and means of cure Thus, when depending upon inflammatory action, the antiphlogistic treatment and regimen, as advised by J. P. Frank and others, are then required ; but when depending upon a paralyzed state of the intestines, consequent upon cither organic lesion in some part of the digestive tube, or upon a morbid condition of the blood, as in the advanced stage of low or malignant fevers, then stimulants, tonics, carminatives, and restor- atives, as turpentine, camphor, musk, ammonia- cum, asafcetida, galbanum, capsicum, myrrh, rue, &c, are equally necessary. In these latter cir- cumstances, and especially when the bowels are loaded by offensive sordes or morbid excretions, then powdered charcoal, as advised by Frank, and employed by myself in such cases, in con- junction with antiseptics or other means, or with one or more of those just named, may be em- ployed. The carbon may be administered in doses of half a drachm to a drachm, twice or thrice daily, in the state of powder, in any suit- able vehicle. In the case of a very celebrated general, attended some years ago by Dr. F. Hawkins and myself, this substance was admin- istered in that quantity and even in more fre- quent doses, and was conjoined with active medi- cines ; it having been adopted chiefly for the re- moval of the fetor characterizing the evacuations and tympania in the advanced stage of low fever. For inflation of the bowels in the last stage of fevers, in dysentery, in chronic diar- rhoea, in misplaced gout, &c., the treatment al- ready advised (§ 17) is often beneficial; and in many of these, especially in aged subjects, char- coal is often of use, and seldom fails of removing the fetor characterizing these cases [When chronic, or owing to atony of the mus- cular coat, electricity by the electro-magnetic ap- paratus has often been found useful. We have known also the galvanic bell worn round the body to afford much relief, and exert a curative action. Cold applications to the abdomen, the vari- ous preparations of iron, sea-bathing, horse-back exercise, a firm band about the abdomen, all may prove advantageous in cases where these reme- dies are indicated. Articles of food prone to fer- mentation, or the extrication of large quantities of air, must be avoided, such as peas, beans, tur- nips, greens ; also fermented liquors, sweet wines, pastry, &c. The bulk of a meal should be small, and condiments used, as pepper, mustard, &c] Bii!i.tog. and Refer. — Celsvs, 1. iii., cap. 21.— Aretce- us. Chronic, 1. ii., cap. i.— Avicenna, Canon, 1. iii., Fem. 14, Fr. 4, cap. i. — Zacutm Lusitanus, Prax-admir., 1. ii., obs. 5r\—Heister, Wahrnchmungen, 1. n. 15. (Ex aire in cavum abdominis effuso ?)—Bonet, Seputehret I iii. See xxi., obs 2, 3. (VUiavUccrum.)—BaUonius, Epidem., 1. ii., p. l-ll. _ R. Blackmore, Dissert, on a Dropsy, a Tympany, &c, 8vo. London, 1721. — Willis, Pliarmac. Kat,, F. ii., sec. n., cap. i.—Brendel Opera, t ii — H°(T- nwmn, Med. Rat. Sysk, t. iv., P. iv., c. I5._p. Cwnbalu- mer, Pneumatopathologia. Paris, 1747. — Kaemvfcr Amcen. Exot., Fasc. iii., obs. 5, p. WS.—Uautcsierk, Re-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21111078_0060.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
