of care rendered very
frequent.

Pass we now to the treatment, premising that a ride in a stage-coach led
to the discovery of its advantages, and taking care, at the same time,
of our abdominal muscles, lest the exertion of laughter should occasion
one of the muscular spasms so much dreaded by our author. The plan is
divided into four compartments; tickling, pickling, ironing, and
throwing up the bowels. The tickling is performed by gentle taps and
slight pushes in the pit of the stomach. (Who could bear it? It would
throw nine patients out of ten into convulsions!) The pickling, by
wrapping up the patient from the chest to the hips with flannel cloths,
wrung out in a mixture of equal parts of hot vinegar and water. (This at
all events tends to _keep_ him.) The ironing, by spreading a coarse dry
towel on the bowels, and passing over them "a bottle filled with boiling
water, or, what is better, a common flat-iron, such as is used in
smoothing linen, _heated as warm as can well be borne_, for fifteen or
twenty minutes." Make an ironing-board of a patient's bowels! This is
worse than all: a man might consent to be tickled and pickled--but to
iron him for twenty minutes--mercy on us! the very thought is sudorific.

The throwing up of the bowels comes the last: fancy Mr. Halsted seated
on the right side of his patient, and facing him; then placing his right
hand upon the lower part of the abdomen, in such a manner, as to effect
a lodgment (we quote his words) as it were, under the bowels, suffering
them to rest directly upon the edge of the extended palm, and then, by a
quick but not violent motion of the hand, in an upward direction, the
bowels are thrown up much in the same manner as in riding on horseback,
a sensation being communicated like that produced by a slight blow. (It
is difficult to imagine who is entitled to the greatest admiration, the
practitioner or the patient.) This treatment, it is said, will generally
effect an increase in the strength of the pulse, a warmth in the
extremities, and a gentle perspiration. So we should imagine: if such a
mode of riding, with one's bowels in another man's hands, will not
produce perspiration, what will? The position of the sufferer, during
the last most remarkable process, may be occasionally altered, the
practitioner taking his station behind him; or he may be placed with his
back against the wall, whilst all these freedoms are taken with his
bowels. Nay, more,--he may be