Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why: What Medical Writers SayAllen, Martha Meir
Science
Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why: What Medical Writers Say
Allen, Martha Meir
Alcohol -- Physiological effect; Temperance
"The matter of diet is an important factor in the treatment of
typhoid fever. The diet should be aseptic, easily digested, and
should contain the necessary food elements. Probably no one
article of diet meets all these requirements as well as
sterilized milk. The patient should take from two to three pints
daily. The milk is best taken four times during the day at
intervals of four hours, taking eight to ten ounces at a time.
Should the patient become tired of the milk, gluten gruel may be
substituted for the milk.
"The diarrhoea and bowel symptoms, when present, may be
relieved by the application of hot fomentations to the abdomen,
warm or hot enemas and twenty grains of subnitrate of bismuth
given every four hours.
"The patient should be kept as quiet as possible, and should be
turned in bed at intervals, to prevent hypostatic congestion and
the formation of bed-sores. The bony prominences which are apt
to become eroded should be sponged frequently with a solution of
tannic acid in equal parts of alcohol and water; a dram of the
tannic acid to a pint of alcohol and water, is about the proper
strength to use.
"By the methods briefly outlined above--that is by the free use
of water internally and externally, by keeping the intestines
thoroughly emptied of poisonous material by the free and
frequent use of enemas, by proper feeding and the careful
attention of a good nurse to the patient and his
surroundings--the duration of the fever may be shortened and the
severity of the disease lessened; heart failure, and other
complications will seldom occur, and the patient will in nearly
every instance make a good recovery. The best method to pursue
to prevent heart failure is to keep the poisons which are
generated in the bowels and absorbed into the body, and which
are the direct cause of the heart failure, eliminated from the
body. Should the heart become weak, it may be effectually
stimulated by giving hot water to drink, applying heat to the
heart in the form of a fomentation, and the application of
fomentations to the upper spine.
"In the treatment of a large number of cases of typhoid fever,
extending over several years' practice, the writer has never
made use of alcohol internally to support the action of the
heart, or for any other purpose.
"The number of cases of death from typhoid fever coming under
the writer's observation, where the method of treatment pursued
has been similar to that briefly indicated above, have been very
few, a much smaller per cent. than in practice where alcohol has
been used as a 'cardiac stimulant.' I believe that the use of
alcohol in the treatment of typhoid fever is not only useless,
but absolutely harmful."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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