DIARRHCEA AND DYSENTERY. 843 



part ; but in this case the practitioner can in some measure avail 

 himself of the advantage of local bleeding, for by opening the sub- 

 cutaneous or milk vein he takes blood from the parietes of the abdo- 

 men, and from that portion of them which is nearest to the inflamed 

 part. The repetition of the bleeding must depend on circumstances, 

 of -which the practitioner will be the best judge. 



Another abater of inflammation will be a mild aperient, A little 

 consideration will show that this is not contra-indicated even by the 

 degree of purging which then exists ; for the retention of matter, 

 such as that discharged in dysentery, must be a far greater source 

 of irritation than the stimulus of a mere laxative. 



The kind of medicine is a consideration of far more consequence 

 than seems to be generally imagined. There would be a decided 

 objection to the aloes so frequently resorted to in these cases : there 

 would be some degree of doubt respecting that excellent and best 

 medicine for general purposes, the Epsom salts. Both of them might 

 add to the excessive irritation which the practitioner is so anxious to 

 allay. Castor oil will here, as in acute diarrhoea, be decidedly pre- 

 ferred, and in the same doses. Some judgment will be required as 

 to the repetition of the purgative. Its object is the simple evacua- 

 of morbid feecal matter, and not the setting up of any permanently 

 increased action of the bowels : therefore, if, instead of the com- 

 paratively scanty and mucous discharges of dysentery, a fair quantity 

 of actual faeces has been brought away, there can be no occasion 

 for, or, rather, there would be objection to, the continuance of the 

 purgative. Linseed oil certainly stands next in value to the castor 

 oil as an aperient, when the bowels are in an irritable state. 



This being inflammation of the large or lower intestines, there will 

 be evident propriety in the administration of emollient injections. By 

 means of the injection or enema-pump, the intestines in the ox, 

 which are the seat of this disease, may be completely filled with 

 some emollient fluid ; and that which is most of all indicated here, 

 and especially in the early stage of treatment, is gruel, well-boiled 

 and thick ; a pailfull of it may be thrown up with advantage two or 

 three times every day. 



Let it now be supposed that this treatment has been pursued 

 two or three days ; — if the discharges are more faecal, a little great- 

 er in quantity, and attended by less pain or less effort in the expul- 

 sion of them, that purpose has been eff"ected which the piactitioner 

 was anxious to accomplish, and he must look about for other mea- 

 sures ; or, if the st^te of the animal remain the same, it will be 

 useless longer to pursue this plan. Then the surgeon refers once 

 more to the character of the malady — inflammation of the mucous 

 membrane of the large intestines — and he asks what he can bring in 

 direct contact with the diseased surface, that is likely to allay irrita- 

 fion or to abate inflammation. Opium immediately presents itself, at 



