TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 241 



are to be extracted, if possible, from the windpipe, and vomited fr^-ra the 

 gullet, or pushed down into the stomach; and the means tor restoring sus- 

 pended animation to be employed in the case of hanging and drowning. 



SUFFOCATION FBOM HANGING.— Immediately remove all 

 clothing from the upper part of the body, and follow the directions under 

 Artificial Respiration to restore breathing. 



SUFFOCATION FROM GAS AND OTHER NOXIOUS 

 VAPORS. — Immediately remove the person into the open air, and throw 

 cold water upon the face, throat and chest, expel the foul gas from the lungs, 

 and restore respiration by means prescribed for Artificial Respiration. As 

 soon as you discover the least breathing, hold strong vinegar to *\^^ nostrils. 

 Should the suffocation be from breathing carbolic acid gas, chloride of soda 

 or a solution of chloride of lime, is preferable, sometimes moistening a cloth, 

 with either of the solutions, and holding it to the nose, will produce the 

 desired effect. Oxygen should be forced into the lungs if it can be produced. 

 Excite warmth in the maimer prescribed for "Drowned Persons" on pages 

 80 and 81. Where suffocation is caused by fire-damp in mines, wells, etc., 

 remove the person at once and treat as above. 



SUSPENDED ANIMATION FROM COLD.— When a person is 

 apparently frozen to death, the body should be handled very carefully, and be 

 very careful not to bend the joints; have the body in a cold place, and rub the 

 same from head to foot with cold water or snow, for fifteen or twenty minutes, 

 until the surface is red, then wipe the body perfectly dry and rub with bare 

 •warm hands; it is better if several persons will join in this rubbing, and then 

 wrap the body in a woolen sheet, and follow the directions as in "Artificial 

 Respiration " to restore breathing. This treatment must be continued with 

 energy for several hours if necessary, and until animation and respiration are thor- 

 oughly restored. Allow the patient to swallow a little lukewarm water and 

 wine or red pepper, or ginger tea. 



STRICTURE OF THE RECTUM.— In many cases this is the result of 

 an inflammatory process, simple or syphilitic, from the cicatrization of deep- 

 seated and extensive ulceration; in others, it is due to the contraction of inflam- 

 matory material poured out external to the bowel in the sub-mucous tissue; in 

 exceptional instances it may be caused by contraction of the parts external to 

 the bowel, after pelvic cellulitis, and Curling quotes a case where it was the 

 direct result of injury. 



The disease, taken as a whole, is twice as common in women as in men, 

 my note book revealing the fact that thirty-two out of forty-eight consecutive 

 cases were in this sex. But syphilitic stricture is more common in the female, 

 and cancerous stricture in the male. 



Constipation is the one early symptom, and it is not till some ulceration 

 has commenced, either at the stricture or above it, that others appear, such as 

 diarrhoea, with lumpy stools, containing blood, pus or mucus, straining at stool, 

 and a sensation of burning afterward, with at last a complete stoppage, 

 abdominal distension and dyspeptic symptoms. 

 16 



