ACUTE DILATATION OF THE STOMACH
This condition is not well understood, nor is its frequence known, but not a few instances of shock are due to dilatation of this organ. The shock to the heart may be a reflex one through the pneumogastric nerves.
It perhaps not infrequently occurs after abdominal operations and is more or less serious, the symptoms being persistent vomiting, upper abdominal distention and collapse. The vomiting is of bloody or coffee-ground material.
Sometimes the ordinary treatment of the collapse and washing out the stomach save the patient; at other times the patient with this series of symptoms dies in spite of all treatment.
It has been shown that acute dilatation of the stomach may occur in pneumonia, and may be one of the causes of cardiac collapse in pneumonia.
When the condition is diagnosed, the treatment would be that of shock plus abdominal bandage and washing out the stomach with warm solutions, if the patient is not too collapsed, or at any rate the frequent administration of hot water in small quantities.
Sometimes when the stomach is dilated the pylorus becomes insufficient, and bile regurgitates into the stomach, and is a cause of the profound nausea and vomiting arid the subsequent collapse. In these cases
114. Henderson: Am. Jour. Physiol., February and April, 1909. not infrequently small doses of dilute hydrochloric acid seem to aid the pylorus to maintain its normal contraction, the regurgitation of bile does not take place, and the stomach may soon acquire a more normal muscle tone. Not infrequently when a stomach is in this kind of trouble and all the foods are rejected, and yet the patient seriously needs nourishment, a warm, thin cereal, as oatmeal or gruel or something similar, may be retained. Such patients, as has been repeatedly stated, need starch as soon as possible, lest an acidosis develop.
In these vomiting and collapse cases the hypodermic administration of morphin and atropin will not only stop the vomiting, at least temporarily, but will also give necessary rest. The dose of morphin need not be large, and the atropin may prevent nausea from the drug.