Technique of massage of the stomach / by Gustaf Norstrom.

  • Norstrom, Gustaf.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Technique of massage of the stomach / by Gustaf Norstrom. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    TECHNIQUE OF MASSAGE OF THE STOMACH. BY GUSTAF NORSTROM. /''X NE knows, and I have already said in my “Traite du Mas¬ sage,” that, if massage yields good results in some cases of nervous gastralgia, it is on the contrary often insufficient or even useless in chronic gastritis and in affections presenting a real alteration of the walls of the organ. This want of success is easily explained if we consider, on one side the deep situation of the stomach and on the other the slight resistance of the deep plane on which it rests. On account of these different causes one is able to mass only a very limited portion of the anterior wall of the stomach, the rest withdrawing under the pressure or not being reached be¬ cause of its distance from the abdominal wrnll. Howrever, in a certain number of cases I have obtained amelioration or even definite cure, but in almost all of these the thinness of the abdominal wall and of the skin and the flattening of the thoracic cage allowed me to seize the dis¬ eased organ without too much difficulty—physical conditions which are very rarely realized. I have wondered if it wmuld not be possible to place the pa¬ tient in such a position that the stomach might become, as does the intestine in the genu-pectoral position, easily accessible to the hand. The massage of the stomach is ordinarily performed with the patient in the dorsal decubitus. About three years ago, finding myself in the presence of an invalid with a very thick abdominal waff, it occurred to me, in order more easily to seise