The Anti-gastric Method
Categories:
TREATMENT OF SCARLET-FEVER.
Sources:
Hydriatic Treatment Of Scarlet Fever In Its Different Forms
consisting in the free use of emetics or purgatives, has been
recommended by some eminent practitioners. Withering, Tissot, Kennedy
and others are in favor of the former, and find fault with the latter,
whilst Hamilton, Willard, Abernethy, Gregory, &c., prefer
purgatives, and some, of course, look upon calomel as the anchor of
safety, which they recommend in quantities of from five to ten grains
per hour. The friends o
one part of the anti-gastric method make
war upon the other: Withering finding purgatives entirely out of place
and Sandwith, Fothergill and others having seen nothing but harm done by
them, whilst Wendt, Berndt, Heyfelder and others caution their
readers against emetics. The anti-gastric method has been of some
service in epidemics and individual cases, when the character of the
disease was decidedly gastric and bilious. To use emetics or purgatives
indiscriminately would do much more harm than good; as, for instance,
during a congestive condition of the brain, the former, and with
inflammatory symptoms of the bowels, the latter, would be almost sure to
sacrifice the patient to the method.