The doctor at home and nurse's guidebook / edited by George Black.

Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The doctor at home and nurse's guidebook / edited by George Black. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    35/684 (page 13)
    liver may become fatty or hard and enlarged, the heart weak and flabby, the kidneys are liable to waste, the lungs to fail, and the patient to grow short of breath. The brain also shares the general mischief, and many of the nerve cells waste through being badly nourished ; the mind in consequence becomes affected ; there is loss of memory, giddiness at times, disagreeable dreams and restlessness at night. The patient wakes up in the morn- ing with no appetite for breakfast, and a feeling of sickness. His nervous system, too, is weakened ; any excitement or trouble affects him ; in advanced cases the tongue and hand tremble, and he is easily made to weep. If the heart be affected, he may be troubled with fainting, which may at length prove fatal. Sooner or later the health is impaired, and any acute illness will quickly carry him off : such a course of life induces premature old age. The drink habit may be here- ditary, or it may be due to poverty and miserable surroundings, or it may be caused by temptations offered by certain trades and call- ings. However acquired, it is the source of immeasurable misery, vice and crime. Bad in a man, it is deplorable on every ground in a woman, leading as it often does to the breaking up of the home and the infliction of great unhappiness and suffering on entirely innocent and frequently helpless persons. In its acute form alcoholism is only another name for delirium tremens, but the chronic form is to be dis- tinguished from the acute by the absence of hallucination. ALCOHOLISM, TREATMENT OF Very little can be done for the habitual drunkard. A sedative may be given at bedtime to enable him to sleep better, and for the dyspepsia or indigestion which accompanies this disease, some bitter tonic, as gentian or quassia, may be ad- ministered, with nitric or hydro- chloric acid two or three times a day. Where the means permit, it is very desirable to consign the victim to a home for inebriates, which may be done now without the consent of the patient. Alco- holism is largely a disease of the nervous system and sufferers should be treated accordingly. It is wise kindness to seclude them for a con- siderable period from all possible access to the poison. That a per- manent cure will be effected in all cases cannot be said, but there is great hope of the restoration of self- respect and will-power and every opportunity of such recovery should be afforded. In rare instances it has been possible for a true friend to take the patient in hand and by exercise of unremitting vigilance and tender solicitude reclaim him or her. Where, however, Isolation, on the one hand, and constant and close supervision, on the other, are impracticable, the first thing that must be done is to abandon the use of all intoxicants whatever. It is safest and most prudent to make no exceptions, not even in favour of the lightest of light wines, lager beer, and cider. The second thing is rigidly to exclude the drink—In such cases undeniably accursed— from the home. The third thing is to help the unhappy victim to help himself or herself. ALIMENTARY CANAL The avenue for food, or the ali- mentary tract, passes through the mouth into the pharynx, which it follows down directly into the gullet (food pipe, oesophagus), continuous with the pharynx, and leading into