Erysipelas.--The medical history of erysipelas is just a succession of remedies recommended, each claimed to be almost infallible, yet abandoned after a time for another for which like exaggerated claims were made. The doctrine of signatures played a large role in the treatment of erysipelas, and, strange as it may seem, still survives. According to the doctrine of signatures, erysipelas, being a disease involving intense redness of the skin, red things in nature would be likely to do it good. Red pepper, for instance, was suggested for it over and over again, both internally and externally. Various red remedies have been favorites at different times in history. At present, in many country places, a poultice made of cranberries is supposed to be most efficacious. For many years I lived in a small town where one of the grocers {22} put in a large stock of cranberries each fall, though the people of the neighborhood used them but little on the table, because during the winter there were many calls for them for the making of poultices for erysipelas. People who have had erysipelas, especially if it has occurred on unexposed portions of the body, are supposed to be protected against its recurrence--for there is a distinct liability to its recurrence--by the wearing of red flannels! There is scarcely any drug that has not at some time been recommended as almost a specific for erysipelas. Anything that was given on the third or fourth day, and it was only at this time as a rule that patients came to physicians to be treated, seemed to bring about the alleviation of symptoms that occurred on the fifth or sixth day. Erysipelas, because of the sudden irruption of fever which accompanies it, the intense redness which characterizes it, and the discomfort which is often present, is an affection that disturbs patients very much. For them, then, the presence of the physician and his assurance that their affection is not likely to be severe, and his prompt relief of certain conditions, all act by suggestion on the patient's mind and strengthen the natural curative reaction. In country places where physicians were not near, erysipelas was one of the affections that continued almost down to our own day to be treated by incantations. I have known in a little American country town of a woman making a "charm," as it was called, for erysipelas.