Fat and Blood: An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and HysteriaMitchell, S. Weir (Silas Weir)
Science
Fat and Blood: An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria
Mitchell, S. Weir (Silas Weir)
Hysteria; Neurasthenia; Rest
their appearance or demeanor.
Meanwhile, the mechanical treatment is steadily pursued, and within
four days to a week, when the stomach has become comfortable, I order
the patient to take also a light breakfast. A day or two later she is
given a mutton-chop as a mid-day dinner, and again in a day or two she
has added bread-and-butter thrice a day; within ten days I am commonly
able to allow three full meals daily, as well as three or four pints of
milk, which are given at or after meals, in place of water.
After ten days I order also two to four ounces of fluid malt extract
before each meal. The fluid malt extracts which now reach us from
Germany have become less trustworthy than they formerly were. Some of
them keep badly, and are uncertain in composition, one bottle being
good, another bad. The more constant, and at the same time most
agreeable, extracts are those now made in this country. Although their
diastasic powers are usually less than is claimed for them, and vary
greatly even in the best makes, they so far have seemed to me on the
whole more satisfactory than the imported malts. It is very desirable
that a thorough chemical study should be made of the various malt
extracts, solid and liquid. I am sure that some of them are defective
in composition, or vary notably as to the amount of alcohol they
contain.
No troublesome symptoms usually result from this full feeding, and the
patient may be made to eat more largely by being fed by her attendant.
People who will eat very little if they feed themselves, often take a
large amount when fed by another; and, as I have said before, nothing is
more tiresome than for a patient flat on her back to cut up her food and
to use the fork or spoon. By the plan of feeding we thus gain doubly.
As to the meals, I leave them to the patient's caprice, unless this is
too unreasonable; but I like to give butter largely, and have little
trouble in getting this most wholesome of fats taken in large amounts. A
cup of cocoa or of coffee with milk on waking in the morning is a good
preparation for the fatigue of the toilet.
At the close of the first week I like to add one pound of beef, in the
form of raw soup. This is made by chopping up one pound of raw beef and
placing it in a bottle with one pint of water and five drops of strong
hydrochloric acid. This mixture stands on ice all night, and in the
morning the bottle is set in a pan of water at 110° F. and kept two
hours at about this temperature. It is then thrown on to a stout cloth
and strained until the mass which remains is nearly dry. The filtrate is
given in three portions daily. If the raw taste prove very
objectionable, the beef to be used is quickly roasted on one side, and
then the process is completed in the manner above described. The soup
thus made is for the most part raw, but has also the flavor of cooked
meat.[28]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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