A diarrhœa, or looseness, which proceeds from violent passions or affections of the mind, must be treated with the greatest caution. Vomits in this case are highly improper. Nor are purges safe, unless they be very mild, and given in small quantities. Opiates, and other antispasmodic medicines, are most proper. Ten or twelve drops of liquid laudanum may be taken in a cup of valerian or penny-royal tea every eight or ten hours, till the symptoms abate. Ease, cheerfulness, and tranquillity of mind, are here of the greatest importance.
When a looseness proceeds from acrid or poisonous substances taken into the stomach, the patient must drink large quantities of diluting liquors, with oil or fat broths, to promote vomiting and purging. Afterwards, if there be reason to suspect that the bowels are inflamed, bleeding will be necessary. Small doses of laudanum may likewise be taken to remove their irritation.
When the gout, repelled from the extremities, occasions a looseness, it ought to be promoted by gentle doses of rhubarb, or other mild purgatives. The gouty matter is likewise to be solicited towards the extremities by warm fomentations, cataplasms, &c. The perspiration ought at the same time to be promoted by warm diluting liquors; as wine-whey, with spirits of hartshorn, or a few drops of liquid laudanum, in it.
When a looseness proceeds from worms, which may be known from the sliminess of the stools, mixed with pieces of decayed worms, &c. medicines must be given to kill and carry off these vermin, as the powder of tin with purges of rhubarb and calomel. Afterwards lime-water, either alone, or with a small quantity of rhubarb infused, will be proper to strengthen the bowels, and prevent the new generation of worms.
A looseness is often occasioned by drinking bad water. When this is the case, the disease generally proves epidemical. When there is reason to believe that this or any other disease proceeds from the use of unwholesome water, it ought immediately to be changed, or, if that cannot be done, it may be corrected by mixing with it quicklime, chalk, or the like.
In people whose stomachs are weak, violent exercise immediately after eating will occasion a looseness. Though the cure of this is obvious, yet it will be proper, besides avoiding violent exercise, to use such medicines as tend to brace and strengthen the stomach, as infusions of the bark, with other bitter and astringent ingredients, in white-wine. Such persons ought likewise to take frequently a glass or two of old red port, or good claret.
From whatever cause a looseness proceeds, when it is found necessary to check it, the diet ought to consist of rice boiled with milk, and flavoured with cinnamon; rice-jelly; sago, with red port; and the lighter sorts of flesh-meat roasted. The drink may be thin water-gruel, rice-water, or weak broth made from lean veal, or with a sheep’s head, as being more gelatinous than mutton, beef, or chicken-broth.
Persons who, from a peculiar weakness, or too great an irritability of the bowels, are liable to frequent returns of this disease, should live temperately, avoiding crude summer fruits, all unwholesome food, and meats of hard digestion. They ought likewise to beware of cold, moisture, or whatever may obstruct the perspiration, and should wear flannel next their skin. All violent passions, as fear, anger, &c. are likewise carefully to be guarded against.
OF VOMITING.
Vomiting may proceed from various causes; as excess in eating and drinking; foulness of the stomach; the acrimony of the aliments; a translation of the morbific matter of ulcers, of the gout, the erysipelas, or other diseases, to the stomach. It may likewise proceed from a looseness having been too suddenly stopped; from the stoppage of any customary evacuation, as the bleeding piles, the menses, &c. from a weakness of the stomach, the colic, the iliac passion, a rupture, a fit of the gravel, worms; or from any kind of poison taken into the stomach. It is an usual symptom of injuries done to the brain; as contusions, compressions, &c. It is likewise a symptom of wounds or inflammations of the diaphragm, intestines, spleen, liver, kidneys, &c.