About the bulk of a nutmeg of Burgundy-pitch may be spread thin upon a piece of soft leather, about the size of the hand, and laid between the shoulder-blades. It may be taken off and wiped every three or four days, and ought to be renewed once a fortnight or three weeks. This is indeed a cheap and simple medicine, and consequently apt to be despised; but we will venture to affirm, that the whole _materia medica_ does not afford an application more efficacious in almost every kind of cough. It has not indeed always an immediate effect; but, if kept on for some time, it will succeed where most other medicines fail. The only inconveniency attending this plaster is the itching which it occasions; but surely this may be dispensed with, considering the advantage which the patient may expect to reap from the application; besides, when the itching becomes very uneasy, the plaster may be taken off, and the part rubbed with a dry cloth, or washed with a little warm milk and water. Some caution indeed is necessary in discontinuing the use of such a plaster; this however may be safely done by making it smaller by degrees, and at length quitting it altogether in a warm season[110]. But coughs proceed from many other causes besides defluxions upon the lungs. In these cases the cure is not to be attempted by pectoral medicines. Thus, in a cough proceeding from a foulness and debility of the stomach, syrups, oils, mucilages, and all kinds of balsamic medicines do hurt. The _stomach cough_ may be known from one that is owing to a fault in the lungs by this, that in the latter the patient coughs whenever he inspires, or draws in his breath fully; but in the former that does not happen. The cure of this cough depends chiefly upon cleansing and strengthening the stomach; for which purpose gentle vomits and bitter purgatives are most proper. Thus, after a vomit or two, the sacred tincture, as it is called, may be taken for a considerable time in the dose of one or two table-spoonfuls twice a-day, or as often as it is found necessary, to keep the body gently open. People may make this tincture themselves, by infusing an ounce of _hiera picra_[111] in an English pint of white wine, letting it stand a few days, and then draining it. In coughs which proceed from a debility of the stomach, the Peruvian bark is likewise of considerable service. It may either be chewed, taken in powder, or made into a tincture along with other stomachic bitters. _A nervous cough_ can only be removed by change of air and proper exercise; to which may be added the use of gentle opiates. Instead of the saponaceous pill, the paregoric elixir, &c. which are only opium disguised, ten, fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five drops of liquid laudanum, more or less, as circumstances require, may be taken at bed-time, or when the cough is most troublesome. Immersing the feet and hands in warm water will often appease the violence of a nervous cough.