Year: 1876

ReclslessIy Drinking suIphuric Acid---A Remarkable Recovery by II Boy whose Stoinnch was Burned Out. ... f.t....

 About year ago Robert Taylor, a red checked and chubby little boy, nine years old, the only son of Passaic (N. J. mechanic, was playing with several other children in a new building, in a street near his home. In an out of the way place one of the boys found black bottle, containing liquid that all con- cluded must be, whisky. Each dared the other to taste the fluid, and at length the boy who had discovered 1t raised the bottle to his lips. Ere he had drank, however, a drop fell from the mouth of the vessel npon his jacket and burned through the cloth. He lowered the bottle and passed it to his the bottle from his more tirnid play mates and hastily drank large quantity of the fuid..t He instantly threw up his hands and fell to the ground insensible. He was borne to his home, and, though his stomach soon threw of what he had drank, he sank into profound coma, from which it was impossible to arouse him. The bottle was found to. contain undiluted sulphuric acid, which tho workmen had. used for cleaning the masonry. For days the little boy lay in torture between. life and death. Doctors examined him and said that he could never recover, as the acid had burned out the entire lining of the stomach. He still fingered, growing feebler, and paler, and more emaciated each day, for he could not retain food in his stomach. He wasted slowly away his flesh was drawn over his members as tightly as parchment, and he appeared to be sim ply an animated skeleton. Dr. James R. Taylor, of Bellevue hospital, was con suited, and he cheered them with the hope that the boy might be cured. The boy weighed scarcely twenty pounds, and he was easily carried back and forth on pillow As he was taken along the street people stopped, to look at him, doubtful, as his physician said, whether he was human being or Q skeleton.

 Dr. Taylor ill beginning the treat ment reasoned that the acid on entering the stomach had instantly eaten through the coating wherever it had reached, and that the consequent excessive flow of the gastric juice to the injured parts had united with the poison and formed a blistering fluid that had scalded nearly every part of the stomach. He hoped that a small portion about the phyloric orifice might have escaped. Starvation was the first enemy that was to be overcome. The physician began his treatment with injections of tepid lime water, faxseed tea and animal glue, in very small quantities.. The tenn perature of the injections was made the same as that of the body. The experi- ment was successful. Then followed in- jections of milk in small quantities, next mild preparation of beef tea and cod liver oil. A little later iron was used as stronger tonic, the treatment being necessarily entirely tonical. Under this regimen the boy began to show internal signs of improvement. Vomiting ceased at once, and never recurred, and after few weeks of injectional treat ment, Dr. Taylor began to feed his patient with light soups and easily masticated jellies, like calves foot jelly. Next followed corn starch and oat meal, the mild injections of iron being continued in conjunction with the diet ing. A considerable hold had now been obtained on the poisoned stomach, and the whole system showed marks of awakening life and vigor. Slowly and surely he grew better, the crimson came faintly upon his cheek, the flesh increased, his stomach grew stronger, and at length he was able to eat almost any light article of food. Lately he has been given ale and porter, and has been able to digest them readily. His weight has increased rapidly, and he is regarded as almost entirely recovered.

 The theory of the cure is that the strengthening treatment that was em- ployed enabled the system to- sustain the undestroyed portions of the, stomach while they were throwing of. the dead matter and the wounds were healing. Tho healing was by 8 natural process of cicatrization, the dead matter sloughing off in the in1ammatory processes, and the undestroyed parts of the stomach drawing together over the wounds. The stomach is now apparently almost as strong as that of any we'll child. +