Doctors versus folks (Volume 3) - Softcover

Reseña del editor

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1915 Excerpt: ... peritonitis seem to bear opium remarkably well. Dr. Alonzo Clark many years ago laid down the dictum, "Do not measure the opium which is given to an acute peritonitis patient. Measure nothing but his respirations." The reason why opium is preferable to morphine in these cases is because it causes less nausea, inhibits peristalsis more surely, remains active for a longer period, has greater diaphoretic properties, is excreted more slowly, and has fewer secondary complications than morphine. The advocacy of the employment of opium in these cases is met instinctively by opposition on the part of doctors and nurses generally, because the dangers of that drug and its alkaloids have led us to forget their actual value under certain conditions. Furthermore, there is a special objection to opium in surgery, as demonstratd by Cantacuzene in his experiments upon guinea pigs. He showed that simultaneously with lessening of sensation, there is a tendency for phagocoytosis and reparative processes to come to a state of rest. This would naturally give bacteria opportunity to multiply. Infected animals subjected to the influence of morphine died sooner than ones not under its influence, other things being equal. In this particular situation--emergencies of typhoid fever and gastric ulcer--other things are not equal. Opium in itself is a dangerous resource, but in this situation we are choosing between the lesser of two great dangers, and when opium is employed in conjunction with a rapidly performed operation for securing drainage, with means for lessening wound pain through the aid of local anesthesia, the principles of the fourth era of surgery are applied in a field in which the principles of the third era of surgery, with its detailed work, were extremely destructive ...