Aged people bear a too costive habit much better than they do fluxes or purgings: for they are easily weakened; and nothing does it more than these discharges.
The great rule, in all the disorders of aged persons, is to take them in time. A purging will be cured by proper diet, when it is regarded early: otherwise medicines must be called in; and perhaps they will be ineffectual.
The quantity of solid food must in this case be reduced: but it should not be left off wholly. A drink should be made of burnt hartshorn and comfry root, two ounces of each boiled in two quarts of water to three pints, the liquor poured clear off, and drank warm with a little red wine. This should be the common drink.
Rice-milk, with some cinnamon boiled in it, is excellent for breakfast; and rice-pudding best of all things for supper; and this two hours before bed-time. Sea-biscuit should on this occasion be eat instead of bread; and the patient must use more than ordinary exercise, to promote perspiration.
CHAP. XVI.
Of the gravel and stone.
Old persons are very subject to obstructions in the urinary passages; and often the various degrees of the gravel and stone follow. These are disorders difficult of cure but they are easily prevented in most constitutions.
Let those who are subject but to slight complaints of this kind avoid wine; and supply its place by clear malt liquor, of a due strength.
Let the diet be cooling: and in regard to exercise, the great and golden rule is moderation. Violent motion, or rest for a long time together, are equally wrong. Let the patient walk, or ride out every day at the proper hours; and when the weather does not permit that, let him use the same exercise in his chamber.
When the fits come on, let him take manna and oil: this is an easy and effectual medicine. Two ounces of manna should be dissolved in half a pint of water, and six spoonfuls of salad oil added to it. A spoonful of this taken every half hour will stay upon the stomach, asswage the pain, stop the vomitings which usually attend these complaints; and at the same time procure stools: and while it eases the cholicky pains, it will give passage to the stone.
This is the course in the violence of a fit. When it is perceived coming on, an infusion of BURDOCK ROOT slic’d, is the safest, best, and most effectual remedy. Two ounces of the fresh root, with a pint and half of boiling water poured on it, makes this infusion. The liquor is to be strained off as soon as cold: and half a pint, a little warmed again, with a quarter of a pint of milk, and sweetened with honey, is to be taken every four hours.