[44] Sweating is perhaps to the general hectic action what the suppuration is to the local one; and, therefore, can only be stopped by influencing this action.
[45] A diet solely animal has been proposed in that peculiar species of hectic which accompanies diabetes; but whether it would be equally useful in other species remains to be determined.
[46] When this disease attacks the lungs, as it too frequently does, then, until a specific remedy for scrophula be discovered, no cure can be obtained. Simple ulceration, or suppuration of the lungs, however, and consequent hectic, may be cured, though not in every instance.
[47] Whenever the discharge does not separate completely from the surface, when it is wiped, but part of it remains, like a film, or jelly, betwixt the granulations, or on particular spots, we may be sure that the action is not healthy.
[48] Simple ointment, rubbed up with a fourth part of its weight of finely levigated calamine, or flowers of zinc, makes a useful application. Mr. Bell recommends, amongst other remedies, a saturnine ointment; but, if this produces any specific operation, it must be a hurtful one, injuring the action.
[49] The circumstance of one part of an ulcer being more affected than another, will be more fully noticed in considering the next genus, in which it is of more practical consequence. Ulcers generally belong to this species, before they assume the characters of the second (for they frequently change from one species, or genus, to another; in which case, the treatment must also be changed).
[50] The cause why these granulations rise, even this trifling height, above the level of the skin, is the indolence of the action, which prevents a cuticle from being formed in due time.
[51] Indolence of the action does not imply that the quantity of a discharge should be lessened, but only that its nature should be changed. In this species, the discharge is much the same in quantity as in a healthy ulcer of the same size, but its perfection is greatly less.
[52] Sometimes the granulating action and the cicatrizing one seems to be confounded, the surface exhibiting a fibrous fleshy appearance. This I have seen most frequently in the calf of the leg; but it may occur in other parts.
[53] These ulcers, after long continuance, frequently induce a disease in the bones or muscles seated below them, as will afterwards be mentioned.