DYSENTERY. 



teiy poison be removed as much as possible ; the rules for obtaining 

 this end are, according to what was said above, partly the same as 

 those treated of in the prophylaxis of intermittent fever, partly those 

 of typhus and cholera. Since the dejections of dysentery patients are 

 very probably the bearers of the poison reproduced in the infected or- 

 ganism, prophylaxis further requires that the bed-pans, enema syringes, 

 etc., of dysentery patients should never be used for other persons, and 

 that the dejections should not be thrown into the common privy, but 

 into a separate pit, and disinfected with a solution of sulphate of iron. 

 Lastly, prophylaxis requires the avoidance of all those causes which 

 increase the tendency to dysentery by rendering the body more sus- 

 septible to the action of the poison. Little probability as there is of 

 a person acquiring dysentery by eating unripe fruit, sleeping on the 

 wet ground, etc., if he be not at the same time exposed to the dysen- 

 tery poison, it is still certain that, during an epidemic, these causes 

 favor the outbreak of the disease. 



We cannot fulfil the causal indications, or those from the disease 

 in dysentery, as we know no antidote that counteracts the poison. 

 The attempt to arrest the disease by active treatment with bleeding, 

 emetics, purgatives, large doses of opium, etc., has very properly been 

 abandoned, and, at present, the treatment is limited to combating the 

 symptoms. But the symptomatic treatment of dysentery only prom- 

 ises good results, if we bear in mind the dependence of the diarrhoea, 

 tormina, tenesmus, and other symptoms, on a diphtheritic inflammation 

 of the intestinal mucous membrane. If we do not attend to this fact, 

 but give opium to arrest the diarrhoea even in cases where hard masses 

 of faeces are collected above the inflamed portion of intestine, we shall 

 render the disease worse, for impacted and decomposed faeces alone 

 are enough to excite a diphtheritic inflammation. In the milder grades 

 of dysentery it is well to begin the treatment with ' a mild laxative, 

 such as castor-oil or decoction of tamarinds, and to return to this rem- 

 edy every time that the dejections contain no faecal matter for a day or 

 two. The reason for this treatment has just been explained. It is 

 only advisable to give an emetic, of ipecac, or tartrate of antimony, in 

 cases where the stomach is filled with undigested substances. Even 

 in the mildest grades of dysentery, the patient should carefully keep 

 in bed, and eat nothing solid, tut live on soup diet. If he be strong 

 and full-blooded, mucilaginous water-soup is sufficient ; but, if he be 

 weak and anaemic, it is well to attend to keeping up the strength from 

 the first and to advise concentrated meat-broths. Most patients are 

 relieved by the application of warm poultices to the abdomen. If the 

 tormina be very severe, and be not relieved by the cataplasms, or if 

 the abdomen be unusually sensitive to pressure, we shall find great 



