Itching.—This troublesome affection may be cured by the use of the following:—(a) 500 grm. milk of almonds; ¼ grm. each corrosive sublimate and ammonium chloride. (b) 60 grm. glycerine of starch; 5 grm. bismuth subnitrate; 5 grm. zinc oxide. (c) 1 litre infusion of mallow; 50 grm. cherry-laurel water (filtered); 10 grm. borax. (d) Vaseline often gives relief.
Ringworm.—Whenever the disease is observed, efficient measures should be taken to cure it, instead of wasting time with feeble popular remedies, such as ink, permitting the affection to spread and become established. The hair should be cut for ½ in. round each patch of ringworm. Get a small camel-hair brush, and a solution of the following composition: 30 gr. iodine; 2 drm. colourless oil of tar. Apply the solution carefully with the brush to the diseased part only. Repeat the application in a week. Strong carbolic ointment may be applied around the patch. It is a most obstinate disease, and requires the exercise of great patience. Children suffering from ringworm should not be much confined in the house, and it is a good rule to give them cod-liver oil, or steel wine, or both.
Sweating (excessive).—(a) In the Michigan Medical News, Dr. Currie recommends in sweats, from whatever cause, 1 pint alcohol, 1 drm. sulphate quinine. Wet a small sponge with it, and bathe the body and limbs, a small surface at a time, care being taken not to expose the body to a draught of air in doing it.
(b) For sweating of the feet, Dr. Meierhof, in the Maryland Medical Journal, directs the patient to immerse his feet morning and night for about 10 minutes, in warm water at 115°-120° F. in which a teaspoonful (1 dr.) powdered commercial soda (impure carbonate of soda) is dissolved. The feet are then thoroughly dried, after which they are painted all over with a coating of compound tincture of benzoin, which acts as an antiseptic astringent and by its mechanical presence on the skin. This treatment is continued for about 10 days, after which it is practised once daily, or every other day, as the necessities of the case may require.
(c) M. Vieusse, principal medical officer at the Military Hospital at Oran, states that excessive sweating of the feet, under whatever form it appears (whether as mere super-secretion accompanied by severe pain, or with fœtidity), can be quickly cured by carefully-conducted frictions with bismuth subnitrate; and even in the few cases where this suppresses the abundant sweating only temporarily, it still removes the severe pain and the noxious odour which often accompany the secretion. He had never found any ill consequence follow the suppression of the sweating.
(d) Napthol has been recommended as an effective remedy against excessive sweating of the palms of the hands, foot-soles, and arm-pits. These places should be moistened once or twice daily, with a mixture of 5 pt. naphthol, 10 pt. glycerine, 100 pt. of alcohol, and afterwards dusted, either with pure starch or with a mixture of 2 pt. naphthol, 100 pt. starch. In the case of sweating feet, small pellets of antiseptic cotton are dipped in the powder and placed between the toes.
Tooth Troubles.—To preserve the teeth, rinse the mouth after every meal. If the gums are naturally irritable and tender, a few drops of tincture of myrrh in water should be used to rinse out the mouth, twice or thrice daily. The first tooth brush should be used as soon as there are teeth to use it upon. An ideal tooth powder should be alkaline, since acids dissolve the tooth substance; finely pulverised, that it may not mechanically abrade; antiseptic, to prevent decomposition of food lodged between the teeth, and perhaps to destroy the microbes which are always found choking the tubules of carious dentine; it should contain nothing irritating to the gums; and, lastly, it should be pleasant to the taste, or it will not be used. Fluid dentifrices do not, as a rule, clean the teeth effectually, unless they contain some ingredient which acts upon the enamel itself; and those preparations which are eulogised as making teeth white or preventing deposit of tartar, should be avoided. Charcoal was at one time a very popular form of dentifrice, and is even now largely used, but from the amount of silica it contains it will rapidly wear away teeth that are not of exceptional hardness; and moreover, the gums in some instances become tattooed in a curious manner from absorption of minute particles. Pumice-powder, again, is too gritty; and camphorated chalk is said to make the gums spongy. Precipitated chalk forms the best basis for a tooth powder, to the base of which may be added pulv. saponis and ol. eucalypt., 1 dr. of each; and if there is no objection to the taste, ½ dr. carbolic acid. (Lancet.)
The tooth brush, which should be used night and morning, should be small, and have its not too stiff bristles arranged in separate bundles (in order that they may pass readily between the teeth and into the natural depression). The outer and inner surfaces of both front and back teeth should be brushed. The direction of the brushing should be from the gums; that is, downwards for the upper teeth, and upwards for the lower. This mode of cleaning the teeth is the best preventive against decay, which causes toothache, and also against the accumulation of tartar, which makes the breath foul, and in course of time causes the teeth to loosen and fall out.
Toothache.—(a) The following is a formula recommended by Prof. Babaieff in the British Medical Journal:—Melt 2 parts white wax or spermaceti, and when melted, add 1 part carbolic acid crystals, and 2 parts chloral hydrate crystals; stir well till dissolved. While still liquid, immerse thin layers of carbolised absorbent cotton wool, and allow them to dry. When required for use, a small piece may be snipped off, and slightly warmed, when it can be inserted in the hollow tooth, where it will solidify. The ease produced by this simple method is really very great.
(b) The following remedy is given by a dentist of great reputation:—First wash the mouth well with warm water, then use the following tincture: 10 gr. tannin, ½ dr. mastic, 10 drops carbolic acid, dissolve in ½ oz. sulphuric ether.