[Fat and Blood by S. Weir Mitchell]@TWC D-Link book
Fat and Blood

CHAPTER VIII
19/59

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 be obstinate, I give thrice a day one-quarter of a grain of watery extract of aloes with two grains of dried ox-gall.

I find the simple milk diet a great aid towards getting rid of chloral, bromides, and morphia, all of which I usually am able to lay aside during the first week of treatment.[27] Nor is it less easy with the same means to enable the patient to give up stimulus; and I may add that in the treatment of the congested stomach of the habitual hard drinker the milk treatment is of admirable efficacy.

As I have spoken over and over of the use of stimulus by nervous women, I should be careful to explain that anything like great excess on the part of women of the upper classes, in this country at least, is, in my opinion, extremely rare, and that when I speak of the habit of stimulation I mean only that nervous women are apt to be taught to take wine or whiskey daily, to an extent that does not affect visibly their appearance or demeanor.
Meanwhile, the mechanical treatment is steadily pursued, and within four days to a week, when the stomach has become comfortable, I order the patient to take also a light breakfast.

A day or two later she is given a mutton-chop as a mid-day dinner, and again in a day or two she has added bread-and-butter thrice a day; within ten days I am commonly able to allow three full meals daily, as well as three or four pints of milk, which are given at or after meals, in place of water.
After ten days I order also two to four ounces of fluid malt extract before each meal.


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