If he be a year old and weaned, then feed him, as above recommended, on the cow’s milk. If there be extreme exhaustion and debility, let fifteen drops of brandy be added to each tablespoonful of new milk, and let it be given every half hour.
Now with regard to medicine. I approach this part of the treatment with some degree of reluctance—for dysentery is a case requiring opium, and opium I never like a mother of her own accord to administer. But suppose a medical man cannot be procured in time, the mother must then prescribe or the child will die! What then is to be done? Sir Charles Locock considers “that in severe dysentery, especially where there is sickness, there is no remedy equal to pure calomel, in a full dose, without opium.” Therefore, at the very onset of the disease, let from three to five grains (according to the age of the patient) of calomel, mixed with an equal quantity of powdered white sugar, be put dry on the tongue. In three hours after let the following mixture be administered:
Take of—Compound Ipecacuanha Powder, five grains;
Ipecacuanha Wine, half a drachm;
Simple Syrup, three drachms;
Cinnamon Water, nine drachms:
To make a Mixture. A teaspoonful to be given every three or four hours, first well shaking the bottle. Let this mixture, or any other medicine I may prescribe, be always made by a respectable chemist.
Supposing he cannot retain the mixture—the stomach rejecting it as soon as swallowed—what then? Give the opium, mixed with small doses of mercury with chalk and sugar, in the form of powder, and put one of the powders dry on the tongue every three hours:
Take of—Powdered Opium, half a grain;
Mercury with Chalk, nine grains;