[193]. One reason why this disease is seldom or never cured, may be, that it is seldom known till too far advanced to admit of remedy. Did parents watch the first symptoms, and call a physician in due time, I am inclined to think that something might be done. But these symptoms are not yet sufficiently known, and are often mistaken even by physicians themselves. Of this I lately saw a striking instance in a patient attended by an eminent practitioner of this city, who had all along mistaken the disease for teething.
[194]. Dr. Tissot, in his Advice to the People, gives the following directions for gathering, preparing, and applying the agaric.—“Gather in autumn,” says he, “while the fine weather lasts, the agaric of the oak, which is a kind of fungus or excrescence issuing from the wood of that tree. It consists at first of four parts, which present themselves successively: 1. The outward rind or skin, which may be thrown away. 2. The part immediately under this rind, which is the best of all. This is to be beat well with a hammer, till it becomes soft and very pliable. This is the only preparation it requires, and a slice of it of a proper size is to be applied directly over the bursting open blood vessels. It constringes and brings them close together, stops the bleeding, and generally falls off at the end of two days. 3. The third part adhering to the second may serve to stop the bleeding from the smaller vessels; and the fourth and last part may be reduced to powder as conducing to the same purpose.”—Where the agaric cannot be had, sponge may be used in its stead. It must be applied in the same manner, and has nearly the same effects.
[195]. See Appendix, Wax plaster.
[196]. See Appendix, Yellow basilicum.
[197]. See Appendix, Turner’s cerate.
[198]. In ulcers of the lower limbs great benefit is often received from tight rollers, or wearing a laced stocking, as this prevents the flux of humours to the sores, and disposes them to heal.
[199]. Various pieces of machinery have been contrived for counteracting the force of the muscles, and retaining the fragments of broken bones; but as descriptions of these without drawings would be of little use, I shall refer the reader to a cheap and useful performance on the nature and cure of fractures, lately published by my ingenious friend Mr. Aitken, surgeon in Edinburgh; wherein that gentleman has not only given an account of the machines recommended in fractures by former authors, but has likewise added several improvements of his own, which are peculiarly useful in compound fractures, and in cases where patients with broken bones are obliged to be transported from one place to another.
[200]. A great many external applications are recommended for strains, some of which do good, and others hurt. The following are such as may be used with the greatest safety, viz. poultices made of stale beer or vinegar and oatmeal, camphorated spirits of wine, Mindererus’s spirit, volatile liniment, volatile aromatic spirit diluted with a double quantity of water, and the common fomentation, with the addition of brandy or spirit of wine.
[201]. I would here beg leave to recommend it to every practitioner, when his patient complains of pain in the belly with obstinate costiveness, to examine the groins and every place where a rupture may happen, in order that it may be immediately reduced. By neglecting this, many perish who were not suspected to have had ruptures till after they were dead. I have known this happen where half a dozen of the faculty were in attendance.
[202]. A woman in one of the hospitals of this city lately discharged a great number of pins, which she had swallowed in the course of her business, through an ulcer in her side.