Belladonna for Hernia.

I was called some time ago to a case that I diagnosed as direct incomplete incarcerated inguinal hernia, where there was no apparent danger in waiting for results. I gave the patient two drops every hour of a mixture of ten drops of specific belladonna in one dram of water with some laxative powders and an enema. In five days after I was called to the neighborhood to see another patient I called to see the patient and found that the hernia was reduced. If you might say the reduction was probably caused by the laxative and the enema, but the patient volunteered the information "Those drops did it." After treating this case I read in the July THERAPEUTIST, page 222, "Incarcerated inguinal hernias were treated by Zagorsky by the internal administration of one-fourth of a grain of the extract of belladonna. A spontaneous reduction took place in each case in twenty-four hours."

COMMENT: Since Lagorsky's cases were published, reports of other cases have been made which seem to be authentic and reliable, in which, after giving belladonna internally, a reduction of the hernias occurred spontaneously. The remedy seems to be accomplishing the result.

Ellingwood's Therapeutist, Vol. 2, 1908, was edited by Finley Ellingwood M.D.