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
If there is an ulcer in the nose, it ought to be dressed with some
emollient ointment, to which, if the pain be very great, a little
laudanum may be added. If it be a venereal ulcer, it is not to be cured
without mercury. In that case, the solution of the corrosive sublimate
in brandy may be taken, as directed in the gutta serena. The ulcer ought
likewise to be washed with it; and the fumes of cinnabar may be received
up the nostrils.
If there be reason to suspect that the nerves which supply the organs of
smelling are inert, or want stimulating, volatile salts, strong snuffs,
and other things which occasion sneezing, may be applied to the nose.
The forehead may likewise be anointed with balsam of Peru, to which may
be added a little of the oil of amber.
The _taste_ may be diminished by crusts, filth, mucus, aphthæ,
pellicles, warts, &c. covering the tongue: it may be depraved by a fault
of the saliva, which, being discharged into the mouth, gives the same
sensation as if the food which the person takes had really a bad taste;
or it may be entirely destroyed by injuries done to the nerves of the
tongue and palate. Few things prove more hurtful either to the sense of
tasting or smelling than obstinate colds, especially those which affect
the head.
When the taste is diminished by filth, mucus, &c. the tongue ought to be
scraped and frequently washed with a mixture of water, vinegar, and
honey, or some other detergent. When the saliva is vitiated, which
seldom happens unless in fevers or other diseases, the curing of the
disorder is the cure of this symptom. To relieve it however in the mean
time, the following things may be of use; if there be a bitter taste, it
may be taken away by vomits, purges, and other things which evacuate
bile. What is called a nidorous taste, arising from putrid humours, is
corrected by the juice of citrons, oranges, and other acids. A salt
taste is cured by plentiful dilution with watery liquors. An acid taste
is destroyed by absorbents, and alkaline salts, as powder of
oyster-shells, salt of wormwood, &c.
When the sensibility of the nerves which supply the organs of taste is
diminished, the chewing of horse-radish, or other stimulating
substances, will help to recover it.
OF THE TOUCH.
The sense of touching may be hurt by any thing that obstructs the
nervous influence, or prevents its being regularly conveyed to the
organs of touching; as pressure, extreme cold, &c. It may likewise be
hurt by too great a degree of sensibility, when the nerve is not
sufficiently covered by the cuticle or scarf-skin, or where there is too
great a tension of it, or it is too delicate. Whatever disorders the
functions of the brain and nerves, hurts the sense of touching. Hence it
appears to proceed from the same general causes as palsy and apoplexy,
and requires nearly the same method of treatment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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