Regulations for Army medical services / War Office.

Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Regulations for Army medical services / War Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Appendix No. 2. food (fruit or vegetables) encourage alvine evacuations, promoting a loose state of the intestinal canal. Such kind of food is indicated when a costive habit prevails ; and fruit eaten in the early part of the day may succeed in securing a proper activity of the bowel functions. On the other hand, where looseness prevails, such food is contra-indicated, unless the scorbutic diathesis be present. Leguminous seeds (peas, beans, &c.) are the most prone to give rise to flatulent dyspepsia. In flatulent dysepsia, the urine has its normal acidity decreased. It may be neutral or alkaline, in severe cases it persistently deposits oxalates with carbonates of the fixed alkalies (potash and soda). In such cases the food must be well masticated— the teeth must be looked to—the meat must be tender, easy of digestion, and well cooked. The meals must be taken regularly, and intervals of abstinence not too pro- longed, not more than four hours, and not much food at a time. Alcohol and coffee are to be avoided. Fluid is to be taken in small quantity at meal times, and aerated waters avoided. Fluids are best taken two hours after meals. In dysentery and enteric fever scrupulous attention must be given to dieting. The intestines must be kept in as tranquil a state as possible. The food must be the least stimulating and irritating to the mucous surfaces and muscular fibres. Milk alone, or milk with isinglass, or with beef-tea, chicken broth, raw meat juice, cream, and barley water, and the various peptonised foods, especially rice, are the most valuable. Next to these are eggs beaten up in milk or in whey ; ice and iced drinks are very grateful. As convalescence advances, white fish, white-fleshed poultry, game and mutton, may be gradually allowed, as already indicated. Salted and dried meats are to be prohibited, and also fruit and succulent vegetables, unless the scorbutic diathesis be present. But, if these latter are not admissable from any cause, then lime juice will be frequently required as a dietetic drink in the daily allowance of water, in order to counteract the otherwise inevitable tendency to scorbutus. To guard against scurvy is a point of great importance in dietetics. Patients, both in military and civil practice, are often kept for weeks on a diet from which the vegetable elements are either excluded or do not enter in sufficient quantity, the result is the disease under which the patient labours phis scurvy. This caution is particularly necessary in dealing with patients coming from Tudia or other malarial climates. Eecent observa-