The diseases of children, medical and surgical / by Henry Ashby ... and G.A. Wright.
- Henry Ashby
- Date:
- 1897
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The diseases of children, medical and surgical / by Henry Ashby ... and G.A. Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
112/878 (page 82)
![several times in the night to sit on the vessel, only passing each time a little mucus streaked with blood. Dysenteric diarrhoea is apt to become chronic, alternately better and worse, until the patient is reduced to a condition of wasting. Sometimes dysenteric diarrhoea occurs in epidemics in winter as well as in summer. We have known several such epidemics. Older children sometimes habitually suffer from what has been termed 'lienteric' diarrhoea, in which a loose stool is apt to follow the ingestion of food. Such children are generally subject to loose bowels, a diarrhoea] stool following any form of excitement, especially a fright, the immediate cause being an exaggerated peristaltic action of the ileum and colon. There is often in such cases a catarrh of the large bowel, as evidenced by the excess of mucus which they pass : phthisical children also may suffer in this way. A form of diarrhoea which has been termed 'fat diarrhcea,' from the presence of an excessive quantity of fat in the stools, has been described, which is presumably due to catarrh of the duodenum and pancreatic duct. In the slighter forms of diarrhcea in infants, where there is not much restlessness, distension of abdomen, and not more than four or five loose stools during the day, it will be usually sufficient to underfeed them for a day or two, and give them some mild laxative, as castor oil or hyd. c. creta, and a simple alkaline mixture. Infants at the breast may be given a few tea- spoonfuls of sweetened barley water in lieu of the breast, or after they have been partially satisfied at the breast. Bottle-fed children should have their milk more diluted than usual, or a mixture of cream and barley water may be substituted for the milk. If the purging is at all severe and curdy masses are vomited, or appear in the stools, it will be best at once to withhold all milk for a day or two, and to substitute some more digestible and less fermentable food. Peptonised milk will sometimes answer very well in the less severe forms of diarrhoea, but it must be borne in mind that in any given case much of the curd remains un- converted into peptones, and the unchanged curd may often be seen in large quantities in the stools, even where great care has been taken in the pepto- nising of the food ; peptonised milk is of more service in gastric catarrh and vomiting than in acute diarrhoea. In the severer cases, where the stools are frequent, the blandest and most unirritating foods must be given ; such, for instance, as— Arrowroot water 2 ounces Whey 2 „ White sugar . i teaspoonful. or— Barley water io ounces White of egg i ounce White sugar . . I or 2 teaspoonfuls Either of these may be given out of a bottle every few hours, and in amounts according to age. Veal broth is also very useful. The medicinal treatment in the early stage consists in giving a laxative for the first twelve or twenty-four hours. In these cases the diarrhcea is](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21035507_0112.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
