Aconite, digitalis, hemlock, lobelia, cantharides, poisonous mushrooms or toadstools, etc., have no certain antidotes. Emetics should be immediately given when any of them are known to have been taken. Animal charcoal is recommended to absorb and render harmless organic poisons in the stomach; teaspoonful doses mixed with water should be given repeatedly, and for those drugs least depressing in their action castor oil is also recommended.
When a prompt emetic is urgently demanded and no drugs of any kind are at hand, large quantities of tepid water should be drunk, say half gallon to a gallon; this distends the stomach mechanically, and by titillating the throat prompt and effective vomiting may be excited; this may be repeated as often as necessary and the stomach thoroughly washed out.
CHAPTER XXXII.
SOMETHING ABOUT DIET.
It has been truthfully said that “many persons dig their graves with their teeth,” but, that improper feeding causes many a grave to be dug is also true.
So never feel sorry or disappointed when the family physician makes a professional visit, and fails to write a prescription, but instead, gives you instruction in the art of feeding and nursing the patient.
Food and stimulants support the strength of the system until the struggle between health and disease or between life and death is overcome, and thus cure the patient by not allowing him to starve. There is a large group of diseases for which there are no acknowledged remedies, and in which a properly selected and regulated diet forms the mainstay of successful treatment. This should be combined with healthy, clean rooms, proper ventilation, and other hygienic means which may suggest themselves to the intelligent practitioner.
The patient’s fancy for this or that article of diet is no index, as a rule, of what is best suited for him; invalid appetites and cravings are abnormal; they are like that of the chlorotic girl who eats chalk and slate pencils, instead of wholesome food and some preparation of iron.