Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic TreatmentTilden, J. H. (John Henry)
Science
Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment
Tilden, J. H. (John Henry)
Appendicitis
The pulse was 130, temperature 102 degree F., in the forenoon; he
had been troubled with nausea a great deal, but with the exception
of one or two vomiting spells, the first and second day, the nausea
did not often cause retching. The mouth and lips were dry, tongue
coated, bad taste in mouth and breath very offensive.
The reason there had not been more vomiting in this case was because
there was diarrhea at first and not quite so much locked up fecal
matter as common. The bowels had been relieved of the usual
accumulation more than is common to the majority of such diseases
before the swelling and fixation had become established.
There is a small percentage of people who are not quite so irritable
as others; in these the contraction, constriction or fixation--the
embargo laid on these parts by nature in her conservative effort at
preventing movement--is not established quite so early, and the
efforts on the part of doctors to force a movement are more
successful in cleaning out a part of the accumulation; or there may
come a diarrhea from the putrefactive poisoning which is causing the
infection of the cecum or appendix and leading to abscess, and this
causes a partial cleaning out before fixation is established; in
these cases there is never so much vomiting nor nausea, neither do
they suffer so much pain for there is not the usual accumulation in
the alimentary canal to excite the peristaltic movement.
The history that the patient and his wife gave me from memory was
that the urine had been scant, and at times painful to pass. There
had been from the start severe pain in the lower bowels, but neither
the patient nor his wife could remember if there had been more pain
on right, lower frontal region than anywhere else; they both
declared that the pain was all through the bowels and that there was
much bearing down like unto the pain of a diarrhea.
Breathing was shallow, of course; it never is otherwise in severe
abdominal distention.
I scarcely touched the abdomen, for I knew I dare not press, in
percussing, enough to distinguish any sound except the tympanitic.
It has never been my custom to allow my curiosity to run away with
my judgment, and cause me to make needless examinations.
All examinations are needless when, it matters not what the
diagnosis can or must be, the treatment will be the same. All
possible bowel troubles which present the same general symptoms of
the disease I am here describing, must receive a like general
treatment. This being true, it matters not what the difference is,
there cannot be a variation requiring a bimanual examination to
differentiate it that will justify the risk. All examinations are
needless and criminal when there is a possibility of rupturing an
abscess. Especially is this true when it is a_ positive fact _that
all typhlitic and appendicular abscesses will open into the bowels
if allowed to do so.
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