849. Pain in the Bowels may happen with or without diarrhea, and is often produced by improper food, or exposure to cold air. The symptoms are frequent fits of crying, drawing up the knees towards the bowels, which are hard and tense to the touch, accompanied either with an obstinate costiveness, or thin, watery, and frequent evacuations, slimy, sour, and of a green color. This complaint is oftentimes relieved by the following powders: Take Turkey rhubarb, in very fine powder, calcined magnesia, of each, twelve grains; compound powder of ipecacuanha, four grains. Mix them well together, and divide them into six doses: one to be given night and morning, to a child under three months; above that age, the dose should be increased.
The health and diet of the mother, or nurse, should be strictly attended to. In some cases the pain is extremely acute, and the agony of the child is known by its cries. Whenever this happens, the following mixture may be given: Take of Turkey rhubarb, in fine powder, twelve grains; magnesia, eight grains; tincture of rhubarb, one drachm; syrup of poppies, two drachms; simple mint-water, an ounce and a half. Mix them together. Dose, if within the first or second month, two tea-spoonfuls every fourth hour. The phial should be shaken before the medicine is poured out.
850. Other remedies for the Colic in Infants.—A great variety of cordials, spices, and opiates, has been recommended, and frequently used, to relieve the pain and expel the wind. They may sometimes answer the purpose, especially in sudden fits of pain in the stomach, from cold or any other accidental cause. At all times, they should be sufficiently diluted with water, cautiously given, and seldom repeated. When the effects of these medicines go off, the pain returns; therefore it is not a desirable mode of obtaining relief. Of the cordials, Geneva, mixed with water, is the least objectionable; being impregnated with the essential oil of juniper-berries, it is an excellent and safe carminative. However, these warm medicines are by no means to be relied on for the removal of the cause of this malady, their effect being merely temporary: such as Godfrey's cordial, and other nostrums—being compounds of opium, spices, and brandy. Opium, when judiciously administered, is an invaluable remedy; the dose of it should be most accurately proportioned to the age of the patient, and urgency of the symptoms, otherwise it may become a poison; and, therefore, should never be given to children, unless under the direction of the most skilful in the profession. Few nurseries are without a medicine of this kind; it quiets the pain of the infant, induces sleep, and leaves the nurse to her repose. Children under this treatment become languid, pallid, incapable of exertion, and, at length, rickety.
The following anodyne mixture will generally relieve the griping pains of diarrhea:—Take of prepared chalk, and gum-arabic, each one drachm; syrup of white poppies, three drachms; Geneva, two drachms; water, four ounces. Mix them together. Dose, a dessert-spoonful after each motion.
In bowel-complaints, chalk has been objected to, as too powerful an astringent in checking diarrhea suddenly: this may be obviated by giving it only after each motion. When the bowels have been previously acted on, either by the rhubarb powders, or by the antimonial emetic, the chalk mixture is a never-failing remedy. It may be given with or without opium, according to the urgency of the symptoms.
The following medicine, by exciting a determination to the skin, effectually relieves the sufferings of the child:—Take ipecacuanha, in coarse powder, two drachms; boiling water, four ounces. When cold, strain off the liquor through a fine piece of linen cloth: then add to three ounces of this liquor—of Geneva, three drachms; syrup of white poppies, two drachms. Dose, a dessert-spoonful every fourth hour.
When this state of the bowels is followed by convulsions, the lower extremities, or the whole body, should be immersed in a warm bath. During the preparation of a bath, flannel dipped in warm water and wrung dry, may be applied to the extremities. Leeches and blisters, under skilful directions, will subdue the violence of the symptoms.