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DISEASES OF THE ORGANS OF DIGESTION. 385 •
drink cold water frequently, in moderate quantities, and
apply the wet compress and wet-sheet pack, according
to the amount of fever.
Inflammation of the Bowels is more common than of
the stomach. It, is either acute or chronic ; and each
is a severe and dangerous disease.
The symptoms are pain about the navel, fixed and
extending over the abdomen, nausea, a sense of heat,
dejection and prostration. The patient lies on his
back, his knees draw up, and shrinks from pressure.
This and the continuousness of the pain distinguishes it
from colic. The countenance is anxious, the pulse fre
quent and tense. Black matter is sometimes both
vomited and passed by the bowels. At first there is
—afterward constipation
diarrhoea, with very offensive
discharges.
In chronic cases there is constipation alternating with
diarrhoea. The strength fails, the flesh wastes, and the
patient dies of what is called consumption of the bowels.
The mesenteric glands are sometimes involved in the
disease, and inflame, harden, and suppurate.
It is easy to see how disease of the stomach and
small intestines must interfere with the vital action of
these organs : but we can scarcely comprehend the
shock to the system, and the suddenness of death which
sometimes occurs in these cases. I haye seen inflam
mation of the bowels coma produce and death in twen
who was recov
ty-four hours in a water-cure patient,
ering from a bilious remittent fever, who would not
obey orders, but would eat every thing bad. Finally,
he ate half a drum of figs.
The treatment, in these cases, must be prompt and
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