Robert-Simon recommends the subcutaneous injection of sea water. Ile states that the dying infant unable to retain food, by a single injec tion may be made to digest a normal amount of milk immediately after wards. The dose of the isotonic sea-water plasma is 30 c.c. injected into the scapular region, no other treatment being usually permitted.
After the injection of salines has been tried a mustard poultice may be applied over the heart and to the extremities, and the hot bath or wet pack may be resorted to. The main principles of this treatment are applic able to the examples of septic diarrhceas occurring also in older children, and in them Eustace Smith advocates the hypodermic injection of Morphia to check purging and vomiting in the early stage, but this agent must be used with extreme caution, since its administration must tend to facilitate the absorption of the toxins whose elimination by the bowel is nature's method of effecting a cure.
When the more urgent symptoms of vomiting, fever and collapse have been met, the catarrhal diarrhoea resulting from the prolonged action of the intestinal toxins should be treated by a simple local soothing drug like Bismuth used in the form of the prescription upon p. This will also be most suitable for the treatment of the diarrhoea of infants and delicate young children who suffer from looseness of the bowel after chills or exposure of the surface of the body from injudicious cold bathing carried out under the craze of " hardening " them. This form of diarrhoea is probably of true catarrhal nature, and should be also met by a warm flannel binder and extra clothing.
The diarrhoea of disordered dentition is of reflex type, probably caused by increased peristalsis, and is best met by mild sedatives like Bromides.
Lienieric diarrhoea is a type of looseness of the bowels resembling in its pathology teething diarrhoea, the bowel being suddenly emptied when the infant, child or adult partakes of food, the contents of the stomach being swept rapidly down the canal. The best treatment for this is Arsenic,
which is administered in liquid form usually with minute doses of Strych nine: in very young infants Bromides may be tried with min. of Fowler's Solution.
A word may be said about the action of Castor Oil in all forms of acute diarrhoea both in the infant and adult. It is a mistake to regard the good results obtainable by this drug as being due entirely to its eliminatory action ; the pure oil is a local emollient and sedative, as proved by its popular use in eczema, conjunctival irritation caused by foreign bodies, &c., in which it is devoid of all irritant action. When swallowed it only acts as a purgative by a small percentage of its bulk being changed into ricinolcic acid in the duodenum; the unaltered remainder passes down the bowel, exercising its bland emollient action on the intestinal tract as it does when instilled into the eye. The recognition of this fact places in the hands of the physician a remedy of the greatest value in the treatment of every form of diarrhoea, reflex, catarrhal, or irritative.
Dee. Aloes Co. has a very striking effect in diarrhoea. it may, in one full dose (.1 dr. to an infant, i- oz. to an adult), cause a firm, natural motion where watery stools have been the rule for many days, and it can be administered safely in the worst cases, as a morning dose, when the ordinary astringent remedies are being administered during the day. The writer has occasionally obtained excellent results from this drug after the very acute symptoms have subsided, but its action is very uncertain.