DYSENTERY

(Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.) A disease of the bowels, endemic in many climates in the autumnal months, and frequently arising from marsh miasma, bad diet, exhaustion and fatigue: its symptoms are lo of appetite, sickne , pain about the bowels, and a frequent ineffectual desire to evacuate their contents, which when pa ed are mucous, fetid, and bloody, with small indurated lumps. It is often accompanied by intermittent and remittent fever, especially in hot and damp countries. In this country dysentery is generally a mild disorder, and not infectious; and is commonly cured by gentle aperients, such as castor oil, or salts and manna, to cleanse the bowels, and opiates to allay irritation. The chronic symptoms which remain are treated with mild tonics, especially vegetable hitters, such as infusion of calumba, angustura, or cascarilla. The contagious dysentery of camps, attended by remittent or typhoid fever, is an alarming and fatal disease:its treatment requires much consideration and skill, and consists in judiciously meeting the various symptoms as they arise. Aperients, diaphoretics, and nauseants, succeeded by tonics, are leading remedies; and the febrile symptoms must be treated according to their inflammatory or putrid tendency. [s. 388]