Gripping

Gripping, or GRIPES, a popular name for all painful affections of the bowels, whether attended with Constipation (q.v.) or Diarrhoea (q.v.). When pains of this kind are spasmodic, they are termed Colic (q.v.). The action of purgative medicine is often attended by more or less of gripping pain, which may be averted in certain cases by the careful choice of the medicine, or by combination of it with Carminatives (q.v.), or with a little opium.