Disturbances of the Heart: Discussion of the Treatment of the Heart in Its Various Disorders, With a Chapter on Blood PressureOsborne, Oliver T. (Oliver Thomas)
Science
Disturbances of the Heart: Discussion of the Treatment of the Heart in Its Various Disorders, With a Chapter on Blood Pressure
Osborne, Oliver T. (Oliver Thomas)
Blood pressure; Heart -- Diseases
3. Bad feeding. The diet should of course be sufficient, for the
patient and proper for the disease, but any diet which causes a
large amount of gas in the stomach, or tympanites, is harmful to the
patient's circulation, to say nothing of any other harm, such as
indigestion may do. All of the nutriments needed to keep the body in
perfect condition should be given to a patient who is ill; in some
manner he should receive the proper amounts of iron, salt, calcium,
starch, protein, sugar and water.
4. Intestinal sluggishness. This means not only that tympanites
should not be allowed, but also that necessary laxatives should be
given. It would be wrong to prostrate a patient with frequent saline
purgatives, but the bowels must move at least once every other day,
generally better daily; and if the case is one of typhoid fever,
they should be moved by some carefully selected laxative, and after
the bowels have sufficiently moved, the diarrhea should be stopped
by 1/10 grain of morphin, and the next day the bowels properly moved
again.
5. Depressant drugs. In this age of cardiac failure, heart
depressants of all types, and especially the synthetic products,
should be given only with careful judgment, and, never frequently
repeated or long continued.
6. Pain. This is one of the most serious depressants a heart has to
combat; acute pain must not be allowed, and prolonged subacute pain
must be stopped. Even peripheral troublesome irritations must be
removed, as tending to wear out a heart which has all of the trouble
it can endure.
7. Insomnia. Nothing rests a heart or recuperates a heart more than
sleep. Insomnia and acute disease make a combination which will wear
a heart out more quickly than any other combination. Sleep, then,
must be produced in the best, easiest and safest manner possible.
8. A too speedy return to activity. The convalescence must be
prolonged until the heart is able to sustain the work required of
it.
The treatment of gradual dilatation in acute disease has been
sufficiently discussed under the subject of acute myocarditis. The
treatment of acute dilatation is practically the same as the
treatment of shock plus whatever treatment must coincidently be
given to a patient for the disease with which he is suffering. The
treatment of shock will be discussed under a separate heading.
THE HEART IN PNEUMONIA
As pneumonia heads the list of the causes of death in this country,
and as the heart fails so quickly, sometimes almost in the beginning
in pneumonia, a special discussion of the management of the heart in
this disease is justifiable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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