Constipated bowels : the various causes and rational means of curen / by S.B. Birch.

  • Birch, S. B. (Scholes Butler)
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Constipated bowels : the various causes and rational means of curen / by S.B. Birch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to change some men's opinions. Scarcely yet is it altogether a thing of the past to hear such expres- sions as these:— I am quite content with my pre- sent hne of practice; I have not time to attend to new-fangled notions; clear the intestines of irri- tating matter, is my motto. This is very plau- sible, and the more so, inasmuch as no sensible man in the profession can deny that the blue-pill and black-draught method is occasionally, in certain cases, correct and sound in principle and practice. Whenever a practicable line of treatment, with little or no medicine, can be successfully adopted in any individual case of constipation, such treat- ment certainly claims a primary consideration. The further we advance out of any impulsive habit of drawing a bow at a venture (the shaft dipped with potent drugs, foreign to the constituency of our bodies) in the management of this common malady, the greater distance do we place between om'selves and the druggists, &c., and the more suc- cess will attend our efibrts in deterring our patients from permanently injuring their own visceral ana- tomy by undue use of medicines. Having offered these precursory remarks by way of explanation for entering upon the consideration of so common an ailment as constipation of the boAvels, I will now endeavour to arrange and examine the variety of causes which under different circum- stances originate and perpetuate it.