SUBSTITUTE FOR COD-LIVER OIL.
An excellent substitute [for cod-liver oil] and one often better tolerated, is the fat of pork properly prepared. I direct a thick portion of the rib piece, free from lean, to be selected and allowed to remain in soak for thirty-six hours before being boiled, the water being frequently changed to get rid of the salt. It should be boiled slowly, and thoroughly cooked, and while boiling, the water must be changed several times by pouring it off, and fresh water nearly boiling substituted. It is to be eaten cold in the form of a sandwich made from stale bread, and both should be cut as thin as possible. It is very nutritious, but it should only be given in small quantities until a taste for it is acquired. It is the most concentrated form in which food can be taken in the same bulk, and I have frequently seen it retained when the stomach was so irritable that other substances would be rejected. For this condition of the stomach it may be rubbed up thoroughly in a porcelain mortar and then given in minute quantities at a time. It is made more palatable by the addition of a little table salt, and this will be tolerated, while the salt used for preserving the meat having become rancid, if not soaked out, will produce disturbance even in a healthy stomach. I, some years ago, saved the lives of two of my children, who, on different occasions were suffering from cholera infantum, by feeding them entirely on the fat of pork prepared in the way I have described, and, while nothing else would be retained in their stomachs, not only was it retained, but it also had a beneficial effect on the diarrhœa.—Emmett’s Prin. and Prac. of Gynæcology, p. 102.
A surgeon in London was recently tried and convicted of manslaughter, for not heeding numerous calls from a patient who afterwards died apparently from this neglect.
COUNTRY CLINIQUES.
VI—A CASE OF OPIUM POISONING. (?)
By a North Carolina Physician.
Katie L., colored, æt. 40, an expert and industrious laundress, but a woman of lewd character, has been under observation for several years. A reliable history of her previous life I cannot give. According to her own account, she had suffered almost every ill to which flesh is heir, excepting gonorrhœa and syphilis. There was a marked systolic murmur over the base of the heart, which, since she showed no other symptom of anæmia, I considered indicative of structural lesion; but as will be seen, I was probably mistaken in this opinion.
The most interesting feature in her case, and for this I most often prescribed, was the concurrence of epileptiform convulsions with every menstrual epoch. For six years has this occurred with almost uniform regularity, an occasional intermission only, having been brought about as the result of medical treatment.
En passant, a word may here be said against the too generally accepted idea that albumen found in the urine of puerperal women, after convulsions, is an indication of a previously existing albuminuria. On five successive occasions, I examined the urine passed by this woman before the occurrence of convulsions, and within a few hours of the attack.
There was not a trace of Albumen. Invariably I found the urine which was passed after the epileptic seizure to be highly albuminous. It gradually resumed its normal character in from two to six days, in a direct ratio to the severity of the attack. Again, the severity of the convulsions maintained an inverse proportion to the quantity of the menstrual discharge. When this was profuse the attack was light, when scanty, more severe. The convulsions generally appeared just before, or at the beginning of the monthly flow. Latterly their occurrence has been somewhat irregular, as has also been the case with the menses. Elaterium in ¼ grain doses, frequently cut them short, but exhausted the patient to such an extent that it had to be discontinued. For several months past I have been controlling the convulsions with ½ grain doses of morphia per orem, repeating every hour until relieved. She has frequently taken two, and a few weeks ago took three such doses, without exhibiting symptoms of marked narcosis.