This is one of the most difficult of diseases to control by any of the ordinary modes of medical practice; and yet, under judicious electrical treatment, it is one of the surest to yield. The disease assumes various phases in different persons, and at different times in the same person, requiring varied treatment.
The pain, after eating, is severe; exhalations of air, apparently from the inner surfaces of the stomach and bowels, or of gas from their decomposing contents, are large—often enormous. The stomach is much of the time acid, and, in some cases, sensibly cold, ejecting often a cold mucus. The bowels are habitually constipated. The patient is nervous, irritable, and subject to great depression of spirits. In this stage or phase of the disease, there is a negative condition of the digestive apparatus generally. Treat with the A D current, in mild force, and expect the case to require considerable time. But, since there is no approach to uniformity among patients, no approximation to definite time can be stated. Give general tonic treatment, (page [95]), three times a week, and close each sitting with local treatment, having P. P. at the coccyx, and manipulating some five minutes with N. P. over the entire front parts of the abdomen and thorax, and over the liver.
It is sometimes found, in old cases, that there is no sensible acidity of stomach; but a pyrosis—a burning sensation in the stomach, or a little above, in what is usually termed "the pit of the stomach." Treat this about three minutes with the P. P., strong force; moving N. P., long cord, over the lower dorsal vertebræ.
ACUTE DIARRHŒA.
Take B D current. Place N. P., long cord, upon the lumbar vertebræ and sacrum, moving it often along the spine, from a position opposite to the umbilicus down to the coccyx; and treat with P. P. over the abdomen, and more especially wherever pain or sensations of uneasiness appear. In severe cases, treat several times in a day—once in two to three hours, if need require, three to five minutes at a time. Use current of full medium strength, if the patient can bear it.
CHRONIC DIARRHŒA.
Take A D current, of very mild force. Place P. P. at the feet, and treat with N. P. over the lower limbs briefly; then over the bowels and stomach, both front and rear, some three to five minutes; then pass up with N. P. over the anterior parts of the chest, two or three minutes; and, next, place N. P. low on the back of neck, with P. P. still at feet, two or three minutes. Treat in this manner once daily.
If at any time the bowels should become unusually flatulent, and evacuations should increase in frequency, change the treatment. Place N. P. at back of neck, as before, and treat about five minutes with P. P. (force increased to moderate current) over the abdomen, daily, from one to three days, as may be necessary. After this, resume treatment as first above prescribed.
COLIC—of whatever kind.
Use A D current, pretty strong force. In severe cases, introduce the rectum instrument N. P., long cord, or in mild cases, place sponge-roll N. P., long cord, at coccyx, and treat with P. P. over all the abdomen, three to five minutes. It may be repeated, if necessary, in thirty minutes.