134 The Canary Book. 



or indigestible articles of food, or bad water, or anything 

 producing acidity of the stomach or an over- secretion of bile. 

 Too much green food will produce it, especially if it is unripe 

 or decayed, sour egg and bread, &c. It may also, and no doubt 

 does frequently, arise from inflammation of the mucous mem- 

 brane of the intestines. This disorder consists in watery 

 motions from the bowels, of frequent occurrence, and which 

 are usually foetid, and are mixed with portions of undigested 

 food, &c. 



The treatment depends greatly upon the cause of the dis- 

 order. If it depends on checked perspiration or cold, a small 

 quantity of Dover's Powder say, from two to three grains to 

 an ounce of gum water, very weak may be substituted for 

 the regular drinking water ; and two drops of castor-oil should 

 be given internally on the point of a knitting needle; warm 

 the needle before you put it in the oil. If the bowels appear 

 inflamed, alternate the former with water containing twenty 

 drops of antimonial wine to each fluid ounce. If it depends 

 on indigestible food, put a teaspoonful of carbonate of soda 

 into three ounces of cinnamon water, and give in place of the 

 ordinary drinking water and the dose of castor- oil as pre- 

 viously recommended. If the purging still continues, mix a 

 dessert-spoonful of chalk mixture with a wineglassf ul of water, 

 add twenty drops of laudanum, and give it in the manner 

 already pointed out. For the chalk mixture take of prepared 

 chalk, half-an-ounce (procurable at any chemist's) ; refined 

 sugar (loaf sugar), three drachms ; gum arabic, powdered, one 

 ounce ; water, one pint ; mix them by trituration. If this 

 fails to check the looseness, a few drops, say, thirty or forty, 

 of tincture of catechu may be added to the last-named mix- 

 ture, which will generally be found to have the desired effect. 

 The diet should consist principally of arrowroot biscuits sopped 

 with new milk. After the purging has ceased the bowels 

 should be carefully regulated by giving a little magnesia, or 

 a senna leaf or two, in the drinking water ; and as the loose- 

 ness, if of any duration, is sure to weaken the patient, a little 

 tonic medicine will be necessary for a few weeks after recovery 



