In some parts of the country the peasants apply to a recent bruise a cataplasm of fresh cow-dung. I have often seen this cataplasm applied to violent contusions occasioned by blows, falls, bruises, and such like, and never knew it fail to have a good effect.
When a bruise is very violent, the patient ought immediately to be bled, and put upon a proper regimen. His food should be light and cool, and his drink weak, and of an opening nature; as whey sweetened with honey, decoctions of tamarinds, barley, cream-tartar-whey, and such like. The bruised part must be bathed with vinegar and water, as directed above; and a poultice made by boiling crumb of bread, elder-flowers, and camomile-flowers, in equal quantities of vinegar and water, applied to it. This poultice is peculiarly proper when a wound is joined to the bruise. It may be renewed two or three times a-day.
As the structure of the vessels is totally destroyed by a violent bruise, there often ensues a great loss of substance, which produces an ulcerous sore very difficult to cure. If the bone be affected, the sore will not heal before an exfoliation takes place; that is, before the diseased part of the bone separates, and comes out through the wound. This is often a very slow operation, and may even require several years to be completed. Hence it happens, that these sores are frequently mistaken for the king’s evil, and treated as such, though in fact they proceed solely from the injury which the solid parts received from the blow.
Patients in this situation are pestered with different advices. Every one who sees them proposes a new remedy, till the sore is so much irritated with various and opposite applications, that it is often at length rendered absolutely incurable. The best method of managing such sores is, to take care that the patient’s constitution does not suffer by confinement, or improper medicine, and to apply nothing to them besides simple ointment spread upon soft lint, over which a poultice of bread and milk, with boiled camomile-flowers, or the like, may be put, to nourish the part, and keep it soft and warm. Nature, thus assisted, will generally in time operate a cure, by throwing off the diseased parts of the bone, after which the sore soon heals.
OF ULCERS.
Ulcers may be the consequence of wounds, bruises, or imposthumes improperly treated; they may likewise proceed from an ill state of the humours, or what may be called a bad habit of body.
In the latter case, they ought not to be hastily dried up, otherwise it may prove fatal to the patient. Ulcers happen most commonly in the decline of life; and persons who neglect exercise, and live grossly, are most liable to them. They might often be prevented by retrenching some part of the solid food, or by opening artificial drains, as issues, setons, or the like.
An ulcer may be distinguished from a wound by its discharging a thin watery humour, which is often so acrid as to inflame and corrode the skin; by the hardness and perpendicular situation of its sides or edges, by the time of its duration, &c.
It requires considerable skill to be able to judge whether or not an ulcer ought to be dried up. In general, all ulcers which proceed from a bad habit of body, should be suffered to continue open, at least till the constitution has been so far changed by proper regimen, or the use of medicine, that they seem disposed to heal of their own accord. Ulcers which are the effect of malignant fevers, or other acute diseases, may generally be healed with safety after the health has been restored for some time. The cure ought not however to be attempted too soon, nor at any time without the use of purging medicines and a proper regimen. When wounds or bruises have, by wrong treatment, degenerated into ulcers, if the constitution be good, they may generally be healed with safety. When ulcers either accompany chronical diseases, or come in their stead, they must be cautiously healed. If an ulcer conduces to the patient’s health, from whatever cause it proceeds, it ought not to be healed; but if, on the contrary, it wastes the strength, and consumes the patient by a slow fever, it should be healed as soon as possible.
We would earnestly recommend a strict attention to these particulars, to all who have the misfortune to labour under this disorder, particularly persons in the decline of life; as we have frequently known people throw away their lives by the want of it, while they were extolling and generously rewarding those whom they ought to have looked upon as their executioners.