The causes of the affection are not well understood. The use of snow-water, or water impregnated with some particular saline or calcareous matter, has been assigned as a cause. It has also been attributed to the use of water in which there is not a trace of iron, iodine, or bromine. A writer in a Swiss journal, Feuilles d' Hygiene, states that the disease is often due to an impeded circulation in the large veins of the neck, from pressure of the clothing, or from the head being bent forward, a position which is often seen in school children, when the muscles of the back of the neck have become fatigued.
Treatment. We have obtained wonderful results by a new method of treatment, which consists in the employment of electrolysis in conjunction with other therapeutic means. There is scarcely a case in which this treatment, properly carried out, will not effect a radical cure. It is attended with no danger whatever.
Those who are afflicted with this disease and unable to avail themselves of special treatment, cannot do better than to take Dr. Pierce's Alterative Extract, or Golden Medical Discovery, and apply to the skin over and around the tumor, night and morning the following solution which may be prepared at any drug store: iodine, one drachm; iodide of potassium, four drachms; dissolve in three ounces of soft water. Apply to the tumor twice a day, with a feather or hair pencil.
MUMPS. (PAROTITIS.)
This is an inflammation of the parotid glands and generally occurs in childhood. It is often epidemic, and is manifestly contagious. It usually, though not always, appears on both sides of the neck at the same time.
Symptoms. An external, movable swelling, just below and in front of the ear, near the angle of the jaw, is the prominent symptom. The enlargement is not circumscribed, but hard and painful, and attended with more or less fever, derangement of the secretions, and difficulty in swallowing. The swelling increases until the fourth and fifth day, when it gradually diminishes, and by the eighth or tenth is entirely gone. Sometimes the disease is accompanied by swelling of the breasts in the female, or the testicles in the male.
Treatment. Usually but little treatment is necessary. Exposure to cold should be avoided. If severe or painful, with febrile symptoms, a hot foot-bath and small doses of the "Compound Extract of Smart-Weed," in some diaphoretic infusion, to induce sweating, together with small doses of aconite, will produce good results. If swelling of the testicles threatens (which seldom happens except on taking cold), resort should be had to mild cathartics, the spirit vapor-bath, stimulating liniments to the neck, and warm fomentations to the part attacked If delirium occurs, a physician should be summoned.
INFLUENZA, OR LA GRIPPE.
This is an infectious disease, characterized by depression, and usually associated with a catarrhal condition of the mucous membrane. It may affect the respiratory organs or the intestinal canal. There is a marked liability to serious complications, of which pneumonia is the most dangerous. The disease is evidently due to a specific virus of great infectiveness, and is more active and contagious at certain seasons and under certain conditions of the atmosphere. By some it has been supposed that it is due to a miasma in the air, but the character of its infection indicates that the true virus is of a germinal nature.