Fat and Blood eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 159 pages of information about Fat and Blood.

Fat and Blood eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 159 pages of information about Fat and Blood.
by iron, change of air, and the like, I did not care to repeat what had already failed.  She was therefore put at rest, and treated with milk, slowly lessened in amount.  Her stomach-troubles, which had been very annoying, disappeared, and when the milk fell to three pints she began to lose flesh.  With a quart of milk a day she lost half a pound daily, and in two weeks her weight fell to one hundred and forty pounds.  She was then placed on the full treatment which I shall hereafter describe.  The weight returned slowly, and with it she became quite ruddy, while her flesh lost altogether its flabby character.  I never saw a more striking result.

I have been careful to speak at length of these fat anaemic cases, because, while rare, they have been, to me at least, among the most difficult to manage of all the curable anaemias, and because with the plan described I have been almost as successful as I could desire.

Let us now suppose that we have to deal with a person of another and different type,—­one of the larger class of feeble, thin-blooded, neurasthenic or hysterical women.  Let us presume that every ordinary and easily attainable means of relief has been utterly exhausted, for not otherwise do I consider it reasonable to use so extreme a treatment as the one we are now to consider.  Inevitably, if it be a woman long ill and long treated, we shall have to settle the question of uterine therapeutics.  A careful examination is made, and we learn that there is decided displacement.  In this case it is well to correct it at once and to let the uterine treatment go on with the general treatment.  If there be bad lacerations of the womb or perineum, their surgical relief may await a change in the general status of health,—­say at the fourth or fifth week.  If there be only congestive or other morbid states of the womb or ovaries, they are best left to be aided by the general gain in health; but in this as in every other stage of this treatment it is unwise, and undesirable therefore, to lay down too absolute laws.  Having satisfied ourselves as to these points, and that rest, etc., is needful, we begin treatment, if possible, at the close of a menstrual period, because usually the monthly flow is a time at which there is little or no gain, and by starting our treatment when it is just over we save a week of time in bed.

The next step is, usually, to get her by degrees on a milk diet, which has two advantages.  It enables us to know precisely the amount of food taken, and to regulate it easily; and it nearly always dismisses, as by magic, all the dyspeptic conditions.  If the case be an old one, I rarely omit the milk; but, although I begin with three or four ounces every two hours, I increase it in a few days up to two quarts, given in divided doses every three hours.  If a cup of coffee given without sugar on awaking does not regulate the bowels, I add a small amount of watery extract of aloes at bedtime; or if the constipation

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Fat and Blood from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.