368 DISEASES OF THE INTESTINES. 



as this have recourse to them. Aloes is much too coarse 

 and drastic and griping a purge to introduce ; and as for 

 sweet or common olive oil — which I know some would give 

 in pint doses and upwards — for my own part, I deem it of 

 very little efficacy. Should the patient be annoyed by fits 

 of colicky pains, there will be no objection to exhibiting 

 small doses of laudanum — from half an ounce to an ounce 

 — in a quart of warm gruel or linseed tea, and to repeating 

 them twice or thrice a day. Starch clysters may also be 

 occasionally administered, either with or without laudanum 

 in them, to relieve any symptoms of tenesmus or irritation 

 in the rectum or colon. Not until other means have failed, 

 and we have dispersed the inflammatory characters of the 

 case, should we venture on astringents. One of the best 

 and safest is the compound chalk powder of the London 

 Pharmacopmia : this aromatic, soothing, binding prepara- 

 tion, may be administered either in ball, with syrup or 

 mucilage, or in drink with gruel, or starch, or linseed in- 

 fusion. In case it is required to increase the narcotic effect 

 of the powder, either opium in substance, or laudanum, may 

 be added to the ball or drench. Should the evacuations 

 exhibit a bilious character, or there appear any reason for 

 supposing the liver to be faulty in its duties, an excellent 

 corrective will be found in the hydrai^gyrus cum cretd : from 

 half to an ounce of it mixed up with syrup into a ball may 

 be given once or twice a day for a week, or even a fortnight, 

 if deemed requisite. With this, Pulv. Ipecacuanhse may 

 be combined with great service, wdien the mucous lining of 

 the intestine is deemed disordered as well. Should we be 

 compelled to have recourse to direct astringents, one of the 

 best is catechu, in 3ij doses, made up with starch and gum 

 into a ball. 



DYSENTERY. 



By dysentery is implied the ftu:i' in its worst form, or, in 

 the specific form in which it has been called the bloody flux. 

 As in diarrhoea, the evacuations are both liquid and frequent; 



