A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 4 : $b Diseases of the genito-urinary and cutaneous systems. Medical ophthalmology, and otology
Science
A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 4 : $b Diseases of the genito-urinary and cutaneous systems. Medical ophthalmology, and otology
Medicine -- Practice
Inquiry as to school-life and educational work should never be omitted.
The general mode of education of girls is faulty in the extreme. No
attention is paid to the great change of puberty, which amounts to a
revolution in the economy, and instead of aiding the vital forces drawn
upon for effecting this change, they are still further depressed by
sedentary life in close rooms or strongly urged in another direction.
No two leading organs of the body can be pushed in development at the
same time with impunity. There is no exception here: either the brain
and nervous {189} system or the sexual organs will suffer. In this
direction is often found a potent cause of all the forms of uterine
derangement--a fact which cannot have escaped the observation of every
physician. The writer has always urged an entire break in the
school-life of girls of at least one year's duration at the time when
signs of puberty begin to manifest themselves; and this period is too
short rather than too long.
Tonics should supplement these regiminal measures. They may be hæmatic,
stomachic, and nervous--either or all. There is a chain of diseased
actions, and it may be attacked at any of its links. Iron stands at the
head of the list. It is not only an hæmatic tonic, and in proper
conditions a promoter of digestion, but decidedly promotes pelvic
congestion, and has therefore an emmenagogue action. The forms at
command are so numerous as to meet the requirements of any case or to
satisfy any fancy. The standard preparations, as a rule, deserve the
preference over more modern ones, in which efficacy is often sacrificed
to elegance. Among the best are those which contain the remedy in a
nascent state, as the compound mixture or the compound pills of iron of
the Pharmacopoeia. Dialyzed iron, the tincture of the chloride, and the
pyrophosphate are reliable, while the addition of manganese, as in the
syrup of the iodide of iron and manganese, is believed by some to
increase the efficacy. With iron may be combined nux vomica or
strychnia and quinia. In large sections of our country malaria is a
constantly-acting depressant of vital force, and the latter medicine
may be given for a time with a free hand, and may be followed by or
combined with arsenic to great advantage.
Constipation is almost universally present in women. It deserves
especial consideration in treating all disorders of the sexual organs.
When attention to habits and appropriate laxative food, as fruits,
oatmeal, Indian meal, cracked wheat, and salads, do not suffice, resort
must be had to enemata or drugs. Aloes has always had a reputation of
special virtue in amenorrhoea which is doubtless well founded. In pill
form it may be combined with any or all the other medicines. Pills of
aloin, one-fifth or one-third of a grain, have the advantage of very
small bulk.
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