_Take oatmeal and make it into a paste with honey_ (E); _this
will speedily ripen them, and facilitate the collection of
matter._
Should the boil not open of its own accord, and matter should be
observed to fluctuate in it, open it with the incision lancet; and
continue with your honey paste, till the core is discharged; when the
_diachylon plaister_ will heal it up.
_Of Ring Worms, Daw Worms_, &c. &c.
These are very troublesome, and though at first they seem but
insignificant, very often they lay the foundation to stubborn evils. In
fact they are but a peculiar kind of itch; and the very same remedy that
is recommended above for the itch, is equally powerful to remove this:
what necessity is there then, of increasing words with a tedious
description of their various appearances; since they will all yield to
one substantial remedy?
_Of the Morbis Pedicularis_, or, _Lousy Disease_.
It is an unhappy circumstance on board a ship, when a man is afflicted
with this filthy distemper; and such a man is as pernicious to a ship’s
crew, as a rotten sheep in a whole herd. If it proceeds from a lazy
filthiness of body, a gentle washing with a good scrubbing-brush, and
rubbing the back with the boatswain’s towel,[12] is a pretty amusement
enough to circulate the blood and to excite cleanliness. But sometimes
this disorder has its seat in the very blood itself, and that filthy
vermin will breed under the skin, and eat their way through, by
clusters.—I have opened boils as big as pigeons eggs, from which large
bunches of lice have followed the lancet.
Footnote 12:
A cat of nine tails.
These patients are in every respect wretched, and are actually objects
of pity. They generally have a pale, sullen, heavy, half-starved,
cowardly, in short a lousy, look; habitually lazy, and seem to be void
of every manly passion; neither good nor ill-natured; and are stimulated
by nothing but pusillanimity; and as they seem neither sick nor well, I
say they are objects both of pity and contempt; though the latter is
unjust, because they cannot help it.
The reason of all this wretchedness is because the blood is degenerated
into a lifeless mass of pituitous corruption; and wants that spirit
which gives a relish to life. Hence we see in this one instance, how
much the mental faculties depend upon the state of the body.
In order to cure this unhappy patient, the blood must be purified, and
the whole system stimulated to a brisk circulation. Nothing less than
mercury will do the one, and stimulants together with exercise, effect
the other.
In the first place give him the following medicine.