Remarks on the Uses of some of the Bazaar Medicines and Common Medical Plants of India: With a full index of diseases, indicating their treatment by these and other agents procurable throughout India; to which are added directions for treatment in cases of drowning, snake-bites &c.Waring, Edward John
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Remarks on the Uses of some of the Bazaar Medicines and Common Medical Plants of India: With a full index of diseases, indicating their treatment by these and other agents procurable throughout India; to which are added directions for treatment in cases of drowning, snake-bites &c.
Waring, Edward John
Botany, Medical -- India; Materia medica, Vegetable -- India; Medicinal plants -- India; Traditional medicine -- India
Since the time that I first gave my opinion to Dr. Waring (in 1872) upon
the treatment of small-pox with carbolised oil, I have seen a good deal
more of the disease, and I still, with slight modifications, maintain my
preference for this form of treatment. When I first used the application
I employed a mixture of one part of Carbolic Acid and ten parts of Sweet
Oil, applied twice daily over the whole body. I now advocate the
employment of one part of Carbolic Acid to fifteen parts of any bland or
Sweet Oil, moistening the body on such parts as may require it,
frequently during the day and night.
Sesamum or Til Oil is ordinarily the most easily procurable throughout
India, but any of the following will do: Poppy, Ground-nut, Apricot,
Walnut, Cocoa-nut, Linseed, Almond, or Olive Oil, the two last being
rather expensive. On no account be led into using any of the Mustard
oils, which, owing to the natives using some of them in their diet, are
occasionally spoken of as "sweet oils."
At whatever stage of the disease the patient comes under treatment, at
once apply this liniment over all the parts being affected, or are
affected by the eruption, by means of a mop of soft cotton-wool (_never
on any account employ a sponge_); apply the liniment freely as if you
were treating a severe burn, and then carefully cover the oiled surface
with cotton-wool, so as to exclude all air, and keep the cotton-wool
dressing in position. The carbolised oil to be freshly reapplied every
four or six hours, so as to keep the parts moist, and the cotton-wool to
be renewed every forty-eight hours. If flakes of wool stick into the
broken skin, moisten these freely with oil, but do not tear them away.
Any amount of cotton-wool can be obtained throughout India at the
smallest hamlet, on a few hours' notice; and at all hours in any bazaar.
Let the patient lie between blankets, not cotton sheets; in commencing
to dress the patient on the first occasion have a layer of cotton-wool
placed upon the lower blanket, then place the patient on this
cotton-wool naked, cover with a similar sheet of cotton-wool and over
this again a blanket; having done this, set to and piecemeal dress the
whole body, where the presence of the coming eruption requires it, with
the carbolised oil, and cotton-wool, supporting the position of the
cotton by means of very light bandages, or by a few stitches with a
needle and thread, so as to keep the wool carefully together as well as
firmly against the body. If suitable under the circumstances, a thin
elastic gauze jersey and drawers keep the cotton protected from being
rubbed off by restless patients.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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