Mercurial Plaster.
Take of common plaster, one pound; of gum ammoniac, strained, half a pound. Melt them together, and, when cooling, add eight ounces of quicksilver, previously extinguished by triture, with three ounces of hog’s lard.
This plaster is recommended in pains of the limbs arising from a venereal cause. Indurations of the glands, and other violent tumours, are likewise found sometimes to yield to it.
Stomach Plaster.
Take of gum plaster, half a pound; camphorated oil, an ounce and a half; black pepper, or capsicum, where it can be had, one ounce. Melt the plaster, and mix with it the oil; then sprinkle in the pepper, previously reduced to a fine powder.
An ounce or two of this plaster, spread upon soft leather, and applied to the region of the stomach, will be of service in flatulencies arising from hysteric and hypochondriac affections. A little of the expressed oil of mace, or a few drops of the essential oil of mint, may be rubbed upon it before it is applied.
This may supply the place of the Anti-hysteric Plaster.
Warm Plaster.
Take of gum plaster, one ounce; blistering plaster, two drachms. Melt them together over a gentle fire.
This plaster is useful in the sciatica and other fixed pains of the rheumatic kind: it ought, however, to be worn for some time, and to be renewed, at least, once a-week. If this is found to blister the part, which is sometimes the case, it must be made with a smaller proportion of the blistering plaster.