The Pseudo-Dioscorides recommends strong stimulant applications containing sori, misy, sulphur, onions, &c.
Avicenna seems to confound herpes with myrmecia, which detracts from the value of his account of it. (iv, 3, 1, 7.)
Rhases describes separately the formica miliaris or herpes miliaris, and the herpes esthiomenos or exedens. For the former he recommends astringent applications, for the latter strong caustics. In his ‘Continens’ he directs the herpes miliaris to be treated with cholagogues and astringent applications.
Serapion in like manner describes two varieties of the disease, but his account of it contains nothing particularly interesting.
Haly Abbas adopts the division laid down by Galen (Theor. viii, 10.) His treatment also is quite similar (Pract. iii, 29.)
In the translation of Alsaharavius the three varieties are described by the names of formica or erysipelas muscina, formica corrosiva (herpes exedens?), and formica miliaris. He describes the formica corrosiva as being a dangerous complaint, spreading deeper and deeper. His treatment, although amply detailed, contains nothing remarkable (Pract. xxix, 9.)
The earlier modern writers on medicine being the servile copyists of the Arabians, describe herpes by the name of formica, as a disease nearly allied to erysipelas, and like it arising from corrupted bile. See Guy of Cauliac (ii, 1), and Theoderic (iii, 16). For the herpes esthiomenos or lupus they recommend the application of arsenic or the actual cautery.
SECT. XXI.—FOR ERYSIPELAS.
Galen, giving the name of erysipelas, more especially to the swelling formed of a hot and thin blood, to that which is formed of both blood and bile, he applies an appellation from the prevailing humour, calling it erysipelatous inflammation when blood prevails, and inflammatory erysipelas when yellow bile prevails. But in general the swelling formed of hot blood and bile is called by him erysipelas. Whatever division we adopt, it will make no great difference as to the treatment. But it is proper to know that erysipelas is a most dangerous disease, more particularly about the head; so that if active treatment be not resorted to, it will sometimes prove fatal to the patients by suffocation. At its first appearance then we must open a vein at the elbow, especially the humeral, or, if it cannot be seen, any one that appears. But if any thing prohibit venesection we must have recourse to purging by cholagogue medicines. The same treatment may be applied to erysipelas of other parts, or we may administer strong clysters. And we are to rub the parts affected by erysipelas with cooling things, in order to repel the defluxion, and with moderately heating and moistening things so as to dissipate that which is collected, before the parts become livid or black; but the parts which are anointed are to be kept constantly in a wet state, by frequently changing the applications, which may be done by cleansing them with soaked sponges: for the heat of the part by converting them into vapour soon renders it dry. As I have said, erysipelas at the beginning requires such things as are cooling and moistening, without astringency; such as house-leek, purslain, and fleawort; the marsh lentil, endive, and gourd; the nightshade, henbane, lettuce, and horned poppy. And parsley, and the leaves of rhamnus by themselves, and made into a cataplasm with bread, are proper applications; also cerates used with very cold water; but we may mix with them some opium, the juice of poppy, cicuta, and mandragora, and thus form them into compound applications. And a cerate may be made of white wax mixed with four parts of rose-oil, prepared from the oil of unripe olives without salts, the ingredients being pounded in a mortar, and as much cold water poured in as it can receive. But if you add a little thin and transparent vinegar, you will render the medicine still better: but polenta, with some of the aforementioned cooling herbs, cool very properly, and fat dates with any of them. And the part may be anointed with ceruse, Cimolian, or potter’s earth, with the juice of strychnos, or litharge with rose-oil, or chalcitis with oil and must; or ceruse, with vinegar and buckthorn; or acacia, with vinegar. When the effervescence subsides we may use these simple applications, native sulphur and mint, with vinegar and rose-oil; or rue with worm-wood; vinegar and oil, or litharge with the juice of leeks and beet; or compound ones, as this trochisk, more especially to the head: of litharge, of ceruse, of saffron, of native sulphur, of opium with must; and in common, for all parts, of Sinopic vermilion, of chalcitis, of roasted misy, of verdigris, of copperas, of fissile alum equal parts, use with vinegar.—Another: Of native sulphur, of ceruse, of opium, of acacia equal parts; use with vinegar. A cataplasm for erysipelas, herpes, abscess, parotis, and burning: of the tender leaves of fresh marsh-mallows, lb. j; having boiled in water and oil, triturate properly, and adding of rose-oil, oz. iv; of litharge, of ceruse, of each, oz. iiss; triturate again with the juice of coriander, or of house-leek, or of strychnos, then adding crumbs of bread so as to form a plaster, apply it. And use this plaster: of oleum cicinum, i. e. castor-oil, lb. j; of oil of myrrh, lb. j; of wax, oz. v; of litharge, oz. iv; of scraped verdigris, oz. ij; the verdigris and litharge are to be triturated with vinegar. A cerate for erysipelas and burns: of white wax, oz. iv; of rose-oil, oz. iij; six eggs, of pellitory of the wall, oz. iv. When the inflammation ceases or becomes chronic, before the part becomes livid, apply a cataplasm of raw barley-meal; but if it has already become livid, incisions must be made in the part, and cataplasms moreover applied, and hot sweet water poured on it, and sometimes sea-water or brine; and sometimes these ingredients are to be mixed with the cataplasm, and then we must use the aforesaid compound medicines with caution: for should these symptoms continue, a transition to suppuration or mortification takes place.