The past and present treatment of intestinal obstructions, reviewed, with an improved treatment indicated / by Hugh Owen Thomas.

  • Thomas, Hugh Owen, 1834-1891.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The past and present treatment of intestinal obstructions, reviewed, with an improved treatment indicated / by Hugh Owen Thomas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    as possible, as by so doing he decreases the con- sistancy of the abdominal contents, and so makes more safe, certain, and gende, the action of the aperient when the time arrives ; that prolonging the constipation is no longer possible. For myself, I have never noticed, where constipation has been well maintained by opium beyond the 14th day, the patient pass solid faeces ; it has always been liquid or pultaceous. As to the proceeding by inflation it appears to me a useless torture. With regard to the value of quicksilver, this can only accumulate at the obstructed point, and is, by its weight more difficult of expulsion by vomiting than the accu- mulated liquid already there ; and this the patient must relieve himself of by occasional vomiting. Sydenham thus comments on the value of this remedy :— Whatever may be said about bullets and quicksilver; things which whilst they can effect but little good, can do much harm. The passing up the rectum far into the colon of O'Byrne's tube, I cannot and never could see its purpose, not even in a loaded and over-distended, consequently a temporarily, paralyzed rectum. As a general rule, in the latter condition it is a spoon or spatula that is wanted; or should the load be too high to be reached by the spatula, frequently