Domestic medicine : $b or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases by regimen and simple medicines. With an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitionersBuchan, William
Science
Domestic medicine : $b or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases by regimen and simple medicines. With an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitioners
Buchan, William
Medicine, Popular -- Early works to 1800
In this species of apoplexy every method must be taken to lessen the
force of the circulation towards the head. The patient should be kept
perfectly easy and cool. His head should be raised pretty high, and his
feet suffered to hang down. His clothes ought to be loosened, especially
about the neck, and fresh air admitted into his chamber. His garters
should be tied pretty tight, by which means the motion of the blood from
the lower extremities will be retarded. As soon as the patient is placed
in a proper posture, he should be bled freely in the neck or arm, and,
if there be occasion, the operation may be repeated in two or three
hours. A laxative clyster, with plenty of sweet oil, or fresh butter,
and a spoonful or two of common salt in it, may be administered every
two hours; and blistering-plasters applied between the shoulders, and to
the calves of the legs.
As soon as the symptoms are a little abated, and the patient is able to
swallow, he ought to drink freely of some diluting opening liquor, as a
decoction of tamarinds and liquorice, cream-tartar-whey, or common whey
with cream of tartar dissolved in it. Or he may take any cooling purge,
as Glauber’s salt, manna dissolved in an infusion of senna, or the like.
All spirits and other strong liquors are to be avoided. Even volatile
salts held to the nose do mischief. Vomits, for the same reason, ought
not to be given, nor any thing that may increase the motion of the blood
towards the head.
In the serous apoplexy, the symptoms are nearly the same, only the pulse
is not so strong, the countenance is less florid, and the breathing less
difficult. Bleeding is not so necessary here as in the former case. It
may however generally be performed once with safety and advantage, but
should not be repeated. The patient should be placed in the same posture
as directed above, and should have blistering-plasters applied, and
receive opening clysters in the same manner. Purges here are likewise
necessary, and the patient may drink strong balm-tea. If he be inclined
to sweat, it ought to be promoted by drinking small wine-whey, or an
infusion of carduus benedictus. A plentiful sweat kept up for a
considerable time has often carried off a serous apoplexy.
When apoplectic symptoms proceed from opium, or other narcotic
substances taken into the stomach, vomits are necessary. The patient is
generally relieved as soon as he has discharged the poison in this way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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