Clinical lectures on diseases of the liver, jaundice and abdominal dropsy : including the Croonian Lectures on functional derangements of the liver delivered at the Royal College of Physicians in 1874.

  • Murchison, Charles, 1830-1879.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical lectures on diseases of the liver, jaundice and abdominal dropsy : including the Croonian Lectures on functional derangements of the liver delivered at the Royal College of Physicians in 1874. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    operates beneficially in the treatment of functional derangement of the liver attended by lithasmia. The observations of Ben eke and other authorities have shown that sea-air is an oxydising agent of great power, and that nitrogenous and sulphur-holding tissues more rapidly disintegrate under its influence.' Accord- ingly we find that many patients with hepatic de.^angementand lithsemia derive immense benefit from residence at the seaside and sea-bathing, although unfortunately the good effects of sea-air are sometimes more than counterbalanced by unhealthy lodgings or improper and badly cooked food. 3. Diluents.—The free use of diluents, such as soda and seltzer waters, is also useful, as they help to eliminate from the system the morbid products of disintegration. Many patients also with lithsemia derive great benefit from drinking half a pint of cold water, or of some alkaline water, while dressing in the morning and before going to bed. 4. Baths.—In all cases of lithsemia and gout the action ot the skin ought to be maintained by frequent bathing or ablu- tions of the entire body with tepid water and soap. Cold baths are often objectionable from inducing muscular or gouty pains, or internal congestions. 6. Aperients ; Gholagogues.—In a large number of cases of functional derangement of the liver great advantage is derived from the frequent use of aperient medicines, whether there be a tendency to constipation or not. Aperients bring away not merely bile, but the products of disintegration contained in the fluid circulating between the liver and bowel prior to their fur- ther elaboration and elimination by the lungs and kidneys. Saline aperients, from the promptness of their action and the large quantity of watery exhalation from the bowel which they induce, are among the best for the purpose now mentioned. Eecourse is usually had to the sulphate of magnesia (Epsom salt), the sulphate of soda (Glauber salt), the tartrate of potash and soda (Eochelle salt), or the phosphate of soda,^ or to various combinations of these salts with chloride of sodium, carbonate of soda, and other alkaline salts, such as are found in the mineral waters of Carlsbad, Friedrichshall, Piillna, Harrogate, or Chelten- ham, or in the recently discovered Hungarian spring, Hunjadi • Parkes on Urine, 1860, pp, 115, 129. ^ Profesf-or Rutherford informs me that he has found the sulphate of soda and the phosphate of soda to be powerful excitants of the biliary secretion in dogs, but the sulphate of magnesia to have no effect at all.