When eruptions are the effect of improper food, or want of cleanliness, a proper attention to these alone will generally be sufficient to remove them. If this should not be the case, some drying medicines will be necessary. When they are applied, the body ought at the same time to be kept open, and cold is carefully to be avoided. We know no medicine that is more safe for drying up cutaneous eruptions than sulphur, provided it be prudently used. A little of the flour of sulphur may be mixed with fresh butter, oil, or hog’s lard, and the parts affected frequently touched with it.

The most obstinate of all the eruptions incident to children are, the tinea capitis, or scabbed head, and chilblains. The scabbed head is often exceeding difficult to cure, and sometimes indeed the cure proves worse than the disease. I have frequently known children seized with internal disorders, of which they died soon after their scabbed heads had been healed by the application of drying medicines[[190]]. The cure ought always first to be attempted by keeping the head very clean, cutting off the hair, combing and brushing away the scabs, &c. If this is not sufficient, let the head be shaved once a-week, washed daily with soap suds, and gently anointed with a liniment made of train oil eight ounces, red precipitate, in fine powder, one drachm. And if there be proud flesh, it should be touched with a bit of blue vitriol, sprinkled with a little burnt allum. While these things are doing, the patient must be confined to a regular light diet, the body should be kept gently open; and cold, as far as possible, ought to be avoided. To prevent any bad consequences from stopping this discharge, it will be proper, especially in children of a gross habit, to make an issue in the neck or arm, which may be kept open till the patient becomes more strong, and the constitution be somewhat mended.

Chilblains commonly attack children in cold weather. They are generally occasioned by the feet or hands being kept long wet or cold, and afterwards suddenly heated. When children are cold, instead of taking exercise to warm themselves gradually, they run to the fire. This occasions a sudden rarefaction of the humours, and an infarction of the vessels; which being often repeated, the vessels are at last over-distended, and forced to give way.

To prevent it, violent cold and sudden heat must be equally avoided. When the parts begin to look red and swell, the patient ought to be purged, and to have the affected parts frequently rubbed with mustard and brandy, or something of a warming nature. They ought likewise to be covered with flannel, and kept warm and dry. Some apply warm ashes between cloths to the swelled parts, which frequently help to reduce them. When there is a sore, it must be dressed with Turner’s cerate, the ointment of tutty, the plaster of cerus, or some other drying ointment. These sores are indeed troublesome, but seldom dangerous. They generally heal as soon as the warm weather sets in.

OF THE CROUP.

Children are often seized very suddenly with this disease, which, if not quickly relieved, proves mortal. It is known by various names in different parts of Britain. On the east coast of Scotland it is called the croup. On the west they call it the chock or stuffing. In some parts of England, where I have observed it, the good women call it the rising of the lights. It seems to be a species of asthma, attended with very acute and violent catarrhal symptoms.

This disease generally prevails in cold and wet seasons. It is most common upon the sea-coast, and in low marshy countries. Children of a gross and lax habit are most liable to it. I have sometimes known it hereditary. It generally attacks children in the night, after having been much exposed to damp cold easterly winds through the day. Damp houses, wet feet, thin shoes, wet clothes, or any thing that obstructs the perspiration, may occasion the croup.

It is attended with a frequent pulse, quick and laborious breathing, which is performed with a peculiar kind of croaking noise, that may be heard at a considerable distance. The voice is sharp and shrill, and the face is generally much flushed, though sometimes it is of a livid colour.

When a child is seized with the above symptoms, his feet should immediately be put into warm water. He ought likewise to be bled[[191]], and to have a laxative clyster administered as soon as possible. He should be made to breathe over the steams of warm water and vinegar; or an emollient decoction, and emollient cataplasms or fomentations may be applied round his neck. If the symptoms do not abate, a blistering plaster must be applied round the neck, or between the shoulders, and the child may take frequently a table-spoonful of the following julep: Take penny-royal water three ounces, syrup of althea and balsamic syrup, each one ounce, mix them together.

Asafœtida is found to have a good effect in this case. It may be both given in form of clyster, and taken by the mouth. Two drachms of asafœtida may be dissolved in one ounce of Mindererus’s spirit, and three ounces of penny-royal water. A table-spoonful of this mixture may be given every hour, or oftner, if the patient’s stomach be able to bear it. If the child cannot be brought to take this medicine, two drachms of the asafœtida may be dissolved in a common clyster, and administered every six or eight hours, till the violence of the disease abates[[192]].