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Liquid paraffin: a reappraisal of its role in the treatment of constipation
F Sharif, E Crushell, K O'Driscoll, B BourkeChildren's Research
Centre, Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, and Department of
Paediatrics, The Conway Institute for Biomedical and Biomolecular
Research, University College Dublin, Ireland
Correspondence to: Dr Bourke billy.bourke@ucd.ie
Accepted 27 February
2001
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
 |
Introduction |
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Liquid paraffin or mineral oil is a transparent, colourless, odourless, or almost odourless, oily liquid composed of saturated hydrocarbons obtained from petroleum.1 Petroleum was used as a medicine at least 400 years before Christ.2 The earliest internal use of refined petroleum appears to date back to 1872, when Robert A. Chesebrough was granted a patent for the manufacture of "a new and useful product from petroleum".2 The use of liquid paraffin gained popularity, after Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane, Chief Surgeon of Guy's Hospital in 1913, recommended its use as a treatment for intestinal stasis and chronic constipation.3
The popularity of liquid paraffin as a treatment for constipation and
encopresis stems primarily from its tolerability and ease of titration.
Although conversion of mineral oil to hydroxy fatty acids induces an
osmotic effect,4 liquid paraffin appears to work primarily
as a stool lubricant.5 Therefore, liquid paraffin is not
associated with abdominal cramps, diarrhoea, flatulence, electrolyte
disturbances,
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- ADC Online, 19 Oct 2001 [Full text]
- Re: The Role of Liquid Paraffin in the Treatment of Constipation
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