ACID IN THE STOMACH.
Causes.—— Weak digestion, sedentary life, indigestible food, irregular meals, &c.
Symptoms.—— Uneasy pain at pit of stomach, acid eructations, sick, and headache. In infants, crying and drawing up the limbs, greenish coloured stools.
Treatment.—— To relieve, half a teaspoonful of carbonate of soda or magnesia, for an adult; to an infant, a little magnesia—if bowels are loose, prepared chalk may be substituted. Animal food is least apt to generate acid.
Observations.—— Acidity in infants at the breast arises very frequently from the mother’s milk, and is best corrected by attention to herself, by avoiding indigestible food, and taking an anti-acid, such as carbonate of soda, or magnesia, once or twice a day; also to take a larger portion of animal food. Infants brought up with the spoon are peculiarly liable to acid, and require, if bowels are bound, a little magnesia, or if there be a looseness, chalk mixture occasionally mixed with their food. The green colour of the stools in infants, is an infallible proof of the presence of acid.
AGUE (Intermitting Fever).
Causes. —— Exposure to exhalation from marshes, increased by poor diet, intemperance, over-fatigue, damp rooms or bed.
Symptoms. —— 1st Stage, cold shivering. 2nd, Increased, and sometimes extreme heat. 3d, Perspiration, which terminates the attack, but which recurs again at stated intervals.
Treatment.—— On the commencement of the cold stage, give 30 drops of laudanum, with cordials in the interval; between the attacks administer Jesuit bark in doses of from l to 2 teaspoonfuls every few hours, or sulphate of quinine in 3 grain doses; when these fail, Dr. Fowler’s solution of arsenic, 10 drops, in water.
