_Enema Syringe._—This is fitted with long and short tube. To use the
long tube, slip it over the short one, which will hold it firmly. After
use hang it up to drain, dry it well, but do not oil it; carry it loose
rather than coiled up, so as to avoid risk of the rubber kinking at the
flexed portions of the tube.
To give an enema, the patient should be placed on his left side, and
brought close to the edge of the bed, with his knees slightly drawn up
towards the belly. The pipe or nozzle of the syringe should be well oiled
or smeared with vaseline, and then carefully introduced into the outlet
of the bowel, and passed gently upwards for about three inches, great
care being taken not to exert any force.
The higher up into the bowel a nutrient or medicinal injection is passed,
the more rapidly will it be absorbed; therefore the long tube is to be
preferred, and the hips should be raised on a pillow, to assist the
patient in retaining the injection.
A nutrient or medicinal enema is usually small in quantity, about two to
four ounces, in order to prevent its being rejected by the bowel, and
is administered by means of a small ball syringe provided with a long
nozzle.
Before giving a medicinal or nutrient enema, it is best to wash the lower
bowel with warm water, and always see that the mixture to be injected is
warmed to “blood heat.”
_Poultices._
_Linseed-meal poultice._—Mix four ounces of linseed meal into about
half a pint of boiling water, constantly stirring until the mixture is
smooth and even. A piece of tow, teased out to the required size, or a
piece of linen or thin cloth, is placed upon a table, and the poultice
turned out upon it; then spread evenly in a layer about three-quarters of
an inch thick, leaving a margin of tow or linen about an inch wide all
round. This margin should be folded over, and the poultice applied to the
affected part—with the meal next the body.
An _Ice poultice_ is made by mixing pounded ice and sawdust, and
enclosing the mixture in a waterproof material such as a mackintosh or
gutta-percha.
TREATMENT OF WOUNDS AND INJURIES.
_By the late WILLIAM HENRY CROSSE, M.D._
In treating wounds, whether large or small, the great essential is
absolute cleanliness, not simple cleanliness in the ordinary acceptance
of the word, but absolute surgical cleanliness.
In the first place, it is as well to lay down the axiom that all
inflammation and other complications of wounds, as suppuration and
blood-poisoning, are due to germs, and germs alone. All cleansing
operations and antiseptic processes are instituted with the sole idea of
preventing the entrance of germs into the wound, either from the hands of
the operator, the dressings, instruments, or the skin of the patient.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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