The principles and practice of modern surgery / by Robert Druitt.
- Robert Druitt
- Date:
- 1848
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The principles and practice of modern surgery / by Robert Druitt. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![allayed by a large dose of solid opium (gr. ii.); or by an opiate enema (vide Formula 85) if the bowels are relaxed, or an aperient enema, espe- cially of turpentine (F. 86), if they are confined. Counter-irritation to the epigastrium, by means of very hot water, or a mustard poultice (F. 74), is also highly useful.—Hiccup may be relieved by small doses of sp. aetheris comp.— Co7wuhions, delirium^ and coma, are to be treated according to (he state of the circulation; by ammonia and stimulants whilst it is de- pressed, but by a very cautious bleeding, or leeching, or purging, or appli- cation of cold to the head, if they remain after the circulation is restored, and the pulse has become firm.—One remedy that it might be well worth while to try in an extreme case, is the wrapping a patient in the skin of a sheep, stripped off immediately after its death. Baron Larrey had seen tliis done by certain humane Esquimaux, with the greatest benefit, to some shipwrecked Frenchmen that were half dead with cold, fatigue, and hunger; and he put it in practice wath equal success in the case of Marshal Lannes, Due de Montebello, when he w^as dangerously bruised by a fall from his horse during one of Napoleon's Spanish campaigns. Cautions.—Care must be taken on the one hand to continue the use of stimulants long enoiigh, and to desist from them gradually if there is any fear that the collapse may return; and, on the other, not to carrj them too far—for if the action of the heart is excited beyond its powers, it will be more liable to be permanently exhausted. Finally, the vulgar and mis- chievous habit of bleeding patients immediately after an injury, before they have recovered from a state of faintness and depression, needs only to be mentioned to be condemned. CHAPTER II. OF PROSTRATION WITH EXCITEMENT, AND DELIRIUM TRAUMA- TICUM. Definition.— Prostration with excitement and excessive reaction, is the terra used by Mr. Travers to signify a state which sometimes Ibllows the collapse from a severe injury; in which there is a violent but transient excitement of the nervous and vascular systems, without the development of that more permanent and sthenic action which constitutes inllammatory fever. Symptoms.—The symptoms vary extremely in different cases, although they present the uniform character of extreme nnd crhaitsfinis excitement, williout genuine febrile action. There is great anxiety about the region of the heart: the resj)iration is oppressed and sighing ; the })uLse exceedingly ra]»i(l and hounding, but soft and compressible ; the face is Hushed, and there is vomiting. Ikit, in the majority of these cases, the jirincipal feature is the excitement of the nervous system, which is manifested by a pecu- liar delirium {(Jc/irium Iranmaticum) precisely similar to the delirium tre- mens* Tiie tongue is moist and tremulous ; there is a general tremor of the muscles ; the .skin covered with persi)iratiou ; the patient is totally • Copland's Diet. Prnct. Mud. Jlrl. Dclirimn with Tremor.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21049737_0034.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
