To turpentine has been ascribed, from time immemorial, specific virtues in relief of hemorrhage of the bowels, and its administration is still a routine system with many older practitioners. It is most effective in large doses—one drachm, with milk or in emulsion, every hour or two until the hemorrhage ceases.
In relief of collapse, alcohol, ether, and musk are imperatively indicated, with the external application of heat; and in the treatment of the anæmia and hydræmia the preparations of iron, including, later, the mineral waters which contain it. In the worst cases of sudden alarming hemorrhage the physician should not fail to practise the transfusion of blood or solutions of salt or soda.
Milk is the best food and drink during the attack, and after it for some days or weeks. Chopped or scraped raw beef may substitute it later, while all farinaceous foods are to be strictly avoided for some time.
INTESTINAL OBSTRUCTION.
BY HUNTER MCGUIRE, M.D.
When a mechanical impediment to the passage of the contents of the bowel along the intestinal canal exists, the condition is known as intestinal obstruction. The causes of this occurrence are numerous, the symptoms urgent, the diagnosis difficult, the treatment uncertain, and the termination, unless relieved by nature or art, speedily fatal. There is no class of cases to which the practitioner is called more important, or which demands on his part greater skill and judgment.
It is customary to divide the causes of obstruction of the bowels into two great classes—acute and chronic.