The Seaman's Medical Friend

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ferent patients, and thus converting many simple sores into very formidable ones. This is easily prevented by never using sponges to clean wounds or sores, but employing lint or soft linen for this purpose, and taking care to use a fresh piece for each patient, and to destroy all that have been once used. INFLAMMATION OP THE BKAIN May be brought on by injuries to the head, by long exposure to the heat of the sun, and by over excitement of mind. The symptoms which first appear are violent pain in the head, deeply seated or extending over a large part of it, with a feeling of tightness across the forehead. Vomiting and constipation of the bowels frequently occur. The face is flushed, the skin dry, the pulse quick and hard, the tongue white, afterwards parched and rough, the eyes red, the pupils generally very small, any strong light hurts the eyes, and any noise increases the pain in the head. The mind wanders and the patient is often violent, and for a long time sleepless. Convulsions frequently occur, though not always. These symptoms are not all present in every case, and they do not always come on in the same order; but when the greater number of them follow the causes above mentioned, it may be considered as one of inflammation; great care, however, being necessary to distinguish it from Delirium Tremens. (See page 43.) The symptoms continue twelve to forty-eight hours or more, and if not relieved the patient falls into a stupor, he hears and sees very imperfectly, or not at all, the eyes squint, the pupils become large, cold sweats break out, twitchings of the hands and feet come on, and precede death. The treatment of the first symptoms is to get rid of the inflammation. The patient must be kept quiet, the head shaved and kept cold with spirit and water, or ice, ...