Stoat

“ The Stools.—When the diarrhea is chronic in character, the character of the stools indicates the seat of the inflammation. When there is a great deal of undigested food found in them the upper part of the bowel is more affected; when the stools contain more mucus than food the lower bowel is the chief seat of the trouble. The frequency and fluidity of the stools impose a great strain upon the entire body, causing a progressive emaciation and anemia.
The treatment is similar to that instituted in acute attacks. The starvation régime cannot be carried out for a long period. ”

“ The process of digestion, as the food passes from one end of the tract to the other, is performed by the aid of the secretions of various glands, which open into the alimentary canal at different points in its course. The principal of these are the salivary glands, situated on the pharynx and oesophagus, and the liver, biliary or hepatic gland, connecting with the stomach. With these may be considered the anal and ink-glands, which, in certain genera, connect with the terminal portion of the rectum. ”

“ Constipation may be absolute, without the discharge of either feces or gas. Very often the contents of the bowel below the obstruction are discharged. The abdomen is usually distended and when the large bowel is involved this is extreme. If it is high up in the small intestine, it may be very slight. At first, the abdomen is not tender, but later it becomes very sensitive and tender. The face is pale and anxious and finally collapse symptoms intervene. The eyes are sunken, the features look pinched and a cold, clammy sweat covers the skin. The pulse becomes rapid and weak. ”

“ I sometimes direct that the woman should take every day a small dose of oil, in a cup of water gruel or oatmeal gruel.
Severe pain in the bowels and rectum is sometimes caused by a column of hard and indurated feces, which remain for a number of days in the rectum and colon. Not only pain but inflammation, and other serious ills, may result if such a condition is neglected. If taking injections does not suffice to give relief, manual assistance is necessary. ”

“ Some pain and griping are felt with increase at each stool, until a chilly feeling is felt all over the body, with violent pains in lower bowels, with pressing desire to go to stool, and during and after passage of stool a feeling that there is still something in the bowels that must pass. Soon that down pressure partially subsides, and on examination of passage a quantity of blood is seen which shows the case is bloody flux, as the disease is called and known in the southern states of North America, or bloody dysentery in the more northern states. ”

“ Can any one that suffers from proctitis, etc., have a natural stool? Unnatural conditions require preternatural aids, as we all know. The injected water dilates the constricted portion of the gut and arouses a revulsive impulse to expel the invading water. In obeying this impulse, the imprisoned feces, gases, etc., are ejected with the water.
It may be unnatural to put water into the rectum, etc., but once there its expulsion from healthy bowels would be quite natural. No natural action can be expected from unhealthy bowels; they do the best they can under the circum­stances. ”

“ It then descends, through the oesophagus, into the stomach, where it becomes digested, and, in a great measure, dissolved, by the gastric juice, which is secreted by the arteries of the stomach. It is then pushed through the pylorus, or right orifice of the stomach into the duodenum, where it becomes mixed with the bile from the gall bladder and liver, and the pancreatic juice from the pancreas. These fluids seem to complete the digestion: after this, the food is continually moved forwards by the peristaltic motion of the intestines. ”

“ If the movement is sufficiently large, one stool daily is sufficient, but where the stool is slight in quantity, there may be two or three during the day, entirely consistent with health, and in a run down state of the system there are apt to be several small movements rather than one full stool. So long as the stools are not watery, the individual may rest assured that there is no looseness of the bowels. ”

“ The stomach has three coats,—the outermost, or peritoneum, which constitutes the common covering of all the intestines; the muscular or fibrous coat, which acts upon, and mingles the food, and prepares it for digestion; and the mucous or villous coat, which is peculiarly developed in the pig, and into which open the mouths of numerous little vessels, conveying the gastric juice to the semi-digested food, and by its action conveying it into a pultaceous fluid, commonly called chyme. ”

“ For Constipation.—Take a small dose of salts or hunyadi water so as to have one semi-solid stool daily. If necessary remove any feces that may even then be retained, by injections of soap suds or warm water containing oil. Discontinue injections as soon as a daily full stool can be had without it.
Habits.—Full-blooded people should not use upholstered chairs as the heat of the body relaxes the tissues of the rectum. A cane seated chair is best or an air cushion with a hollow center. It is best to rest in bed, if possible, after stool for the rest relieves the congestion and soreness. ”

“ We have consequently a condition in which we have a daily movement but not a complete emptying of the bowel. The character of the stools from such a bowel must necessarily be more or less of a semi-liquid consistency, because the intestine, being coated with a hard dried out layer of old fecal substance, is prevented from absorbing the liquid part of the fresh fecal mass passing through it. This condition may exist for a considerable time, but it will slowly undermine the health and vitality of any person in whom it exists. ”

“ Probably the most common form of chronic constipation is that which accompanies loss of sensibility and muscular inactivity of the colon and rectum. The large bowel becomes sometimes so distended by the accumulated fecal masses that it has been found after death to measure ten or fifteen inches in circumference and to contain an astonishing quantity of feces. Any part of the canal, except the last two inches of the rectum, which is kept empty by the contraction of the sphincters, may be occupied by the mass, but the accumulation is greatest in the rectum, cæcum, and sigmoid flexure. ”

“ Gall stones, formed largely of bile pigments and cholesterin, sometimes collect in the gall-bladder, where they cause irritation and may give rise to empyema of the gall-bladder. The stones vary in size from a pea to a hen’s egg and when small may be very numerous. ”

“ The large intestines are easily cured, but the small ones with difficulty, and the jejunum is utterly incurable, from the multitude of its convolutions and the magnitude of its vessels, and owing to its coats being thin and nervous; besides, it receives all the bile in an undiluted state, and is nearest to the liver. The under and fleshy parts of the stomach we may attempt to cure, for we may succeed, not only because these parts are thicker, but because curative medicines are more readily applied to them, owing to their situation. ”

“ In some cases the pain comes every few weeks and then may be scattered, sometimes seeming to be in the stomach, and then in the bowels, or in the region of the liver. When a person has such pains and locates them in the stomach or bowels, and they come periodically, every week or two or more, he ought to be suspicious about it being gall stones, especially if the symptoms do not show any stomach trouble. If the stone is large and closes the common duct, jaundice occurs; the stools are light colored; the urine contains bile. ”

“ But as the intestinal termination of the bile-duct is made more sensible for the purpose of bringing down more bile, when it is stimulated by new supplies of food from the stomach, it falls into violent pain from association; and then the pain on the region of the gall-bladder ceases, exactly as above explained in the account of the pain of the glans penis from a stone in the sphincter of the bladder. ”

“ All kinds of foodstuffs, at all hours, with seeds, stones, etc., are poked into its stomach, followed by constipating remedies to quiet inevitable troubles, or brisk purgatives given with the hope of expelling the arrested contents of the bowels. Is it any wonder that ninety-eight persons of adult age out of every hundred suffer more or less from chronic inflammation and ulceration of anus, rectum, sigmoid flexure, colon, or appendix? ”

“ It has the advantage of removing the old, solid feces, obstructions and mucus, from the intestines, without causing the usual diarrhea and constipation as an after effect. It is to be used in the beginning only, as an aid, and will not have to be used continually. As soon as the intestines are cleansed from the retained masses of feces and other obstructions and the mucusless or mucus-lean diet is taken up, you will realize the truth of the previously stated facts. ”

“ It is the Receptacle of the Aliments or Food convey'd thither thro' the Oesophagus or Gullet, which is a Canal, or kind of streight Gut that reacheth from the Throat to the Mouth of the Stomach. The Stomach it self is situated immediately under the Diaphragm or Midriff, between the Liver and the Spleen, having two Orifices, whereof the Left is properly call'd Stomachus, or the Upper, and the Right (at its other Extremity) Pylorus, or the lower Orifice. Its Figure resembleth that of a Bag-Pipe, and the greater part of its Body lies toward the Left side. ”

“ Whereas, if the liver secretes more bile during the intervals of digestion than the wants of the system require; after the completion of each succeeding meal the excess of bile will remain behind in the gall-bladder, and, while becoming stored up with that subsequently secreted, of necessity, favour the increase or excite the formation of gall-stones in persons predisposed to them. There being nothing more conducive to the deposition of biliary calculi than a well-filled gall-bladder. ”

“ The constriction is especially severe at the junction of the rectum with the sigmoid colon, where it flexes upon itself in the region where the bore of the rectum is less. The comparative shutting up of the caliber of the upper end of the rectum and lower portion of the sigmoid colon occasions undue retention of the feces and gases which accumulate, and in accumulating dislocate various portions of the large intestine, thus forming pouches, sacks, reservoirs, prolapse, etc., which hold the products of putrefaction as well as the irritating, poisonous mucus thrown out from the inflamed tissue. ”

“ Piles, fissure, itching pockets, tabs, prolapse, abscesses, fistulæ, etc., are only the outcome and symptoms of a chronic disease which has incubated for fifteen, twenty or more years. None of this list of troubles produces constipation. It is the inflammation located at the middle portion of the rectum and extending into the sigmoid flexure that causes constipation; that protean monster which deranges more lives with nervousness than any other pathological condition to which the flesh of man is heir! ”

“ For constipation, in which the object is to unload the bowel as quickly as possible, 1 or 2 pints of water, at a temperature of from 104° to 110° F., is made into a suds by means of Castile or other good soap, and poured into a fountain-syringe. If the enema is being given by an attendant, the patient lies on the right side in the Sims’ position; the under leg is stretched out so that it forms a straight line with the trunk, while the upper leg is sharply flexed at the knee, so that the foot is opposite the knee of the under leg; the right arm is thrown back from under the body. ”

“ If any part of the digestive function is deficient, impaired health, or mental and physical inefficiency expressed in the form of indigestion, is the result. If [Pg 304] the bowel is at fault, constipation is the usual consequence. A perfectly healthy living machine must maintain a perfect digestion and regular bowel movements.
The Function of the Stomach is to mix and churn the food, and to add certain ingredients to the mixture so that before it is carried into the intestines it is (as far as it is the stomach's duty to render it) ready to be absorbed into the system. ”

“ When the irritation is further down the intestine, as when an ulcer is situated in the rectum, there is a constant desire to go to stool, but the only results of the expulsive efforts involved in its gratification are exhaustion of the patient and aggravation of the ulcerated condition. ”

“ Some disagree regarding the paunch and say that it does contain blood, [6] even post facto the paunch and reticulum of the ruminant stomach is forbidden as any other meat. However the fat that is upon them is as any other meat. Therefore when the rectum and other intestines are salted [7] they are not salted on the inner part over the actual food, (3) rather on the outside where the fat is attached. Rema: If the rectum was salted on the inner side and not on the outer side it is as if it wasn’t salted. [8] if it was cooked this way it is not kosher [9] if it has fat on the outside. ”

“ As soon as one stone has passed through the duct into the intestine, immediate relief is experienced until another commences to pass, and the larger the concretion, the greater is the pain. If the stools be washed, the gall-stones may be seen floating on top of the water. ”

“ Four or five of these folds enter into the intestine, and here, for about a quarter of an inch, they become but very slightly elevated; as they approach that peculiar semiflexion in the intestine referred to above, they increase in number, and also in depth (Fig. 4) , and, from their very close and compact appearance, I am led to suspect that this portion of the intestine, between the pyloric orifice of the true stomach and the orifice of the biliary ducts, is more than an ordinary duodenum, and acts somewhat as a secondary stomachal cavity. ”