Diseases > Domestic medicine

DOMESTIC MEDICINE. 273
sweetened with a little honey ; an infusion of balm,
or linseed sharpened with the juice of orange or
lemon ; a decoction of barley and liquorice, with
tamarinds, or any other cool, diluting, acid liquor.
Above all, his supper should be light; as small
posset, or water-gruel, sweetened with honey, and a
Mtlle toasted bread in it. If honey should disagree
with the stomach, the gruel may be sweetened with
treacle or coarse sugar, and sharpened with the jelly
of currants. Those who have been accustomed to
generous liquors, may take wine-whey instead of
gruel, which may be sweetened as above.
The patient ought to lie longer than usual a-bed,
and to encourage a gentle sweat, which is easily
brought on towards morning, by drinking tea, or any
kind of warm diluting liquor. I have often known
this practice carry off a cold in one day, which in all
probability, had it been neglected, would have cost
the patient his life, or have confined him for some
months. Would people sacrifice a little time to ease
and warmth, and practise a moderate degree of
abstinence when the first symptoms of a cold appear,
we have reason to believe, that most of the bad effects
which flow from an obstructed perspiration might
be prevented. But, after the disease has gathered
strength by delay, all attempts to remove it often
prove vain. A pleurisy, a peripneumony, or a fatal
consumption of the lungs, are the common effects
of colds whieh have either been totally neglected or
treated improperly.
Many attempt to cure a cold, by getting drunk.
But this, to say no worse of it, is a very hazardous
experiment. No doubt it may sometimes succeed,
by suddenly restoring the perspiration; but when
there is any degree of inflammation, which is fre¬
quently the case, stroiv* liquors, instead of removing