In mild cases of erysipelas, attention to the state of the bowels, and regulation of diet, will often be sufficient to remove the disease. When there is much disorder of the digestive organs, and particularly of the biliary secretions, emetics may be given at the commencement; these are productive of but little good in the more advanced stage, and their place is advantageously supplied by nauseating doses of antimony, combined or not with purgatives. One-eighth of a grain of tartarised antimony may be given in solution every hour, with or without a due quantity of the tart. potassæ and sodæ, or Rochelle salt. The hydrargyrum cum creta is often given with great benefit when the tongue is dry and covered with a brown crust: it may be combined sometimes advantageously with the compound powder of ipecacuanha. With the same view calomel with antimonial powder may be exhibited. The exhibition of saline purges is attended with great good in some severe cases. Such medicines tend to subdue any arterial excitement that may exist, evacuate the bowels, promote perspiration, remove the superabundant bilious matter, and serve to restore the healthy functions of the liver. In severe cases, more especially of phlegmonous erysipelas, in which there is acceleration of the pulse, and a degree of febrile excitement, general bleeding may be had recourse to; but it must be employed with caution, for the symptoms of increased vascular action may arise from constitutional irritation, and not be meliorated by the depletion. The practice is superseded by the timeous and free local bleeding from incisions, as will be noticed by and by. The exhibition of the extract of aconite in this and other inflammatory affections, is often followed by great abatement of vascular excitement, so that the necessity for abstraction of blood is done away with. The medicine may be given in doses of half a grain in substance, or dissolved in pure water, and repeated every third or fourth hour. The sensible effect is relaxation of the surface, and frequently profuse perspiration; the arterial pulsations are diminished in frequency and force. The extract of belladonna, in doses of one-sixteenth of a grain, may then be substituted with great advantage, and often with the most extraordinary effect upon the disease. In very many cases, the strength is from the first to be supported by all possible means, by nourishing diet, by the exhibition of wine, quinine, and other tonics; more particularly in old people—in constitutions debilitated by disease—in unhealthy situations, and when the fever is of a typhoid kind. Bleeding by leeches is not admissible, for the leech-bites prove a source of irritation, and are liable to suppurate; erysipelas has often been produced by leeching.