Detective and mystery stories; English fiction -- 19th century
such a case, as port wine, infusion of oak-bark, &c., but with as
little effect as the other medicines. Indeed, the remedies of whatever
kind were precluded from exercising their full action by the extreme
irritability of the stomach, by which they were ejected almost as soon
as swallowed. This being the case, I abandoned any further attempt at
the exhibition of the heavy doses I had hitherto employed, or indeed
of drugs of any kind, and confined myself, until the irritation of the
_epigastrium_ should have been in some measure allayed, to a treatment
I have occasionally found successful in somewhat similar cases; the
administration, that is to say, of simple soda-water in repeated doses
of a teaspoonful at a time. I have often found this to remain with good
effect upon the stomach when everything else was at once rejected, nor
was I disappointed in the present case. About an hour after commencing
this treatment, the first violence of the symptoms began to subside,
and by the next afternoon the case had resolved itself into an ordinary
one of severe _gastroenteritis_ which I then proceeded to treat in the
regular manner. After quite as short a period as I could possibly have
expected, this also was subdued, leaving the patient, however, in a
state of great prostration, and subject to night-perspirations of a
most lowering character. I now began to throw in tonics, and to resort,
though very cautiously, to more invigorating diet. Under this treatment
she continued steadily to improve, though the perspirations still
continued, and her constitution cannot be said to have at all recovered
the severe shock it had sustained by the month of April, 1855, when
they left Dover, by my recommendation, for change of air. Since that
time I have not seen her. I am quite unable to account for the seizure
from any cause but that of a chill; an hypothesis which, I must admit,
rests its authority almost solely on the fact that no other can be
found.
3.--_Extracts from Mrs. Anderton's Journal_--_Continued._
_Jan._ 20, 1855.--At last I get back once more to my old brown
friend.[3] Dear old thing, how pleasant its old face seems! Very little
to-day though; only a word or two, just to say it is done. Oh, how it
tries one!
_Jan._ 25.--My own dear husband's birthday; and, thank Heaven! I am
once more able to sit with him. Oh! how kind he has been through all
these weary weeks, when I have been so fretful and impatient. Why
should suffering make one cross? God knows, I _have_ suffered. I never
thought to live through that terrible night. It makes me shudder to
think of it. And, then, that horrid, deathlike, leaden taste--that was
worst of all. Well, thank God! I am better now, but so weak. I am quite
tired with writing even these few lines....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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