230 THE TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



admirably if given in milk or on sugar. If the essence of camphor is not at hand, the 

 camphor pilules, sold at any chemist's, will do as well. The tincture of cinchona or 

 bark also gives good results in the treatment of these cases. It should be given in 

 drop-doses after every loose motion. 



In summer diarrhosa, and, for the matter of that, in all kinds of diarrhoea, the 

 greatest attention must be paid to the diet. It is of not the slightest use giving 

 solid food, for it will only be ejected immediately. The best thing is for the patient 

 to take nothing but fluid nourishment, and to take it cold. Get a tumblerful of 

 milk, and put in it a table-spoonful of brandy and a few pieces of ice ; give the 

 sufferer only a tea-spoonful at a time. If you give more at first it will be almost 

 sure to excite the vomiting and purging. When you find this small quantity is 

 retained, you can gradually and carefully increase the dose. You will remember 

 that milk is extremely nutritious, and that if the patient can take this and digest it 

 he is in 110 danger of being starved. When the stomach is very irritable the 

 following will often prove useful : Take a table-spoonful of cream and beat it up 

 thoroughly with the white of a new-laid egg. Add slowly to the froth of the 

 mixture thus obtained a table-spoonful of brandy, in which a lump of sugar has 

 been dissolved. As a rule, we prefer the iced brandy and milk. 



In many of the chronic forms of diarrhoea, and more especially in the " white 

 flux " of the " old Indian," great benefit will be experienced from the administration 

 of arsenic. A tea-spoonful of the mixture (Pr. 40) should be given three or four 

 times a day, or after every loose motion. Small doses of mercury, given frequently, 

 as in Prs. 48 and 71, will often do good. It is very essential in these cases to 

 endeavour to improve the general health, and tonics will often afford much more 

 satisfactory results than astringents and diarrhoea mixtures. The acid and gentian 

 mixture (Pr. 15), or the perchloride of iron mixture (Pr. 1), will do much to give 

 tone to the system. In obstinate cases, the adoption for a time of an exclusively 

 milk diet will sometimes effect a cure. 



When the complaint has been contracted in a malarial, i.e., aguish, district, or 

 the patient has previously suffered from ague, a course of quinine (Prs. 9 and 10) 

 will often afford the happiest result. 



There are many other valuable remedies for diarrhoea besides those to which we 

 have already referred. We now proceed to enumerate the chief, giving after each a 

 short description of the class of cases in which it has proved most useful. 



Camphor. We have already spoken of the value of this drug in the treatment 

 of summer or choleraic diarrhoea. The great indication for its employment is the 

 suddenness of tJie attack. But it may be said, " Surely diarrhoea always conies on 

 suddenly; you would not expect it to take a month about it." That is quite true, 

 but some kinds of diarrhoea come OK very much more quickly than others. You are 

 in the midst of an animated conversation, let us say, when suddenly you feel that if 

 you cannot make some excuse to get away something dreadful must happen. That is 

 just the case for camphor; and the more startling and unexpected is the onset of the 

 attack, the greater is the probability that camphor will do good. The motions in 

 these cases are usually watery, and dark in colour. When there is coldness of the 

 surface of the body, camphor will usually quickly restore warmth to the extremities. 



