_“Lavamenta.”_
This form of applying a medicine furnishes the practitioner with many
valuable resources, although the remedy has not escaped its due share of
persecution. Paracelsus bestowed upon it the epithet “_turpissimum
medicamentum_,” and Van Helmont that of “_pudendum medicorum
subsidium_.”
It is calculated to fulfil the following indications, viz.
1. _To promote the tardy operation of a Cathartic, or to evacuate the
bowels, where, from delicacy of stomach, medicines cannot be
retained, or from debility of body they cannot be safely
administered._
In the administration of a remedy of this kind, there are two essential
circumstances, independent of the _strength_ of its ingredients, which
will modify its activity, viz. IMPULSE and QUANTITY, by which we obtain
the stimulus of distention; warm water without any adjunct may thus be
made the means of overcoming those unrelenting obstructions, which had
refused obedience to more common measures: Clysters, however, when most
forcibly urged, rarely reach beyond the sigmoid flexure of the colon,
and yet when the largest quantity of fluid which the bowels will admit
is introduced with considerable impulse, the local impression is so
powerful that it is at once extended by the medium of sympathy, through
the whole of the alimentary canal, and very thorough and copious
discharges result.