Domestic medicine : $b or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases by regimen and simple medicines. With an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitionersBuchan, William
Science
Domestic medicine : $b or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases by regimen and simple medicines. With an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitioners
Buchan, William
Medicine, Popular -- Early works to 1800
Harrowgate water is certainly an excellent medicine in the land-scurvy.
I have often seen patients who had been reduced to the most deplorable
condition by this disease, greatly relieved by drinking the
sulphur-water, and bathing in it. The chalybeate water may also be used
with advantage, especially with a view to brace the stomach after
drinking the sulphur-water, which, though it sharpens the appetite,
never fails to weaken the powers of digestion.
A slight degree of scurvy may be carried off by frequently sucking a
little of the juice of a bitter orange, or a lemon. When the disease
affects the gums only, this practice, if continued for some time, will
generally carry it off. We would however recommend the bitter orange as
greatly preferable to lemon; it seems to be as good a medicine, and is
not near so hurtful to the stomach. Perhaps our own sorrel may be little
inferior to either of them.
All kinds of sallad are good in the scurvy, and ought to be eaten very
plentifully, as spinage, lettuce, parsley, celery, endive, radish,
dandelion, &c. It is amazing to see how soon fresh vegetables in the
spring cure the brute animals of any scab or foulness which is upon
their skins. It is reasonable to suppose that their effects would be as
great upon the human species, were they used in proper quantity for a
sufficient length of time.
I have sometimes seen good effects in scorbutic complaints of very long
standing, from the use of a decoction of the roots of water-dock. It is
usually made by boiling a pound of the fresh root in six English pints
of water, till about one-third of it be consumed. The dose is from half
a pint to a whole pint of the decoction every day. But in all the cases
where I have seen it prove beneficial, it was made much stronger, and
drank in larger quantities. The safest way, however, is for the patient
to begin with small doses, and increase them both in strength and
quantity as he finds his stomach will bear it. It must be used for a
considerable time. I have known some take it for many months, and have
been told of others who had used it for several years, before they were
sensible of any benefit, but who nevertheless were cured by it at
length.
The leprosy, which was so common in this country long ago, seems to have
been near-akin to the scurvy. Perhaps its appearing so seldom now, may
be owing to the inhabitants of Britain eating more vegetable food than
formerly, living more upon tea and other diluting diet, using less
salted meat, being more cleanly, better lodged and clothed, &c.—For the
cure of this disease we would recommend the same course of diet and
medicine as in the scurvy.
OF THE SCROPHULA, OR KING’S EVIL.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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