TROOPS IN THE WEST INDI1 - 397 



DY9EN i i:n\ 



Diarrhoea, when continued for any length of time, often 

 terminated in dysentery. They seemed to be modifications 

 of the same disease ; for, so soon as the mucus of the intestines 

 is washed off", or abraded, gripes and tenesmus come on, the 

 stools are small, slimy, and often bloody. Unless this disease 

 be soon remedied, it grows worse daily; and either proves 

 fatal, or gets into a chronic state. In unhealthy situations, 

 where fevers are frequent and dangerous, dysenteries often 

 prevail, and partake of the reigning disorder, assuming many 

 of their leading symptoms. But the most common dysente- 

 ries among the troops are occasioned by protracted fevers, 

 and obstructed viscera. 



At first, gentle emetics of ipecacuanha were given ; then 

 solutions of natron vitriolatum, of cream of tartar, or castor 

 oil, were employed in small doses, frequently while the gripes 

 and tenesmus continued ; at bed-time a dose of pulv. ipecac, 

 comp. to restore perspiration ; and, lastly, cascarilla decoc- 

 tion, with the Peruvian bark. In obstinate dysenteries, we 

 judged them to be owing to obstructed viscera, or topical in- 

 flammation of the intestines. In cither case, some gentle doses 

 of calomel, with occasional opiates, speedily removed every 

 symptom of the disease. 



CONTAGION IN FEVERS. 



All the fevers we have mentioned were probably owing 

 to heat, moisture, foul air, or marsh miasma. But they will, 

 under particular circumstances, be more or less contagious. 



This is a well known fact in all ages, particularly in fevers 

 of the typhoid kind when once formed, and arrived at a 

 certain pitch of malignity. We have seen how rapidly in- 

 fection spreads amongst troops in transports, and in ships of 

 war. That contagion, however, is stationary in the West 

 Indies ; for so soon as the men, ill of fever, are landed, washed, 

 and shifted, not a single instance has happened, of contagion 



