STYE IN THE EYE.
This form of boil, occurring on the eyelid, sometimes appears as one of the disorders connected with pregnancy, more particularly in its earlier part.
Stye is much more apt to happen with those who have a disordered stomach than with the healthy. As a general rule, however, it may be regarded that boils are healthy; that is, it denotes a very good state of the vitality, when it has the power thus to throw morbid matter out of the system. Still, it is yet more healthy to have the body so pure that it has no need whatever of symptoms of the kind of which I am speaking.
A stye is much more painful than might be expected, considering its small size. This is owing both to the vehemence of the inflammation and to the excessive sensibility of the part upon which it is situated. The disturbance caused by it may become so great as to amount to a good deal of feverishness and restlessness, attended not unfrequently with a severe pain in the head.
Treatment.—We cannot do a great deal in such cases, except to let matters take their own course. It is productive of a good deal of relief to hold the eye in tepid water, and if the patient will consent to live two or three days almost wholly without food, the suffering will be rendered much less, and the stye will come the sooner to a head.