Diseases > Domestic medicine

be incre.tsed or diminished according to the age of
Bi set says, the great bastard blade hellebore, or
bear t foot, is a most powerful vermifuge for the long
round worms He o tiers the decoction of about a
drachm of the green leaves, or about fifteen grains of
the d.ietl leaves in powder for a dose to a child
between four a d seven years of age. This dose is
to he repealed two or three times. He adds, that the
g.een leaves made into a syrup with coa.se sugar, is
almost the only medicine he has used for round
worms for th ee years past. Before p essing out the
juice, he moistens the bruised leaves with vinegar,
which corrects the medicine. The dose is a tea¬
spoonful at bed-time and one or two next morning.
I have frequently known these big bellies, which
in child, en are commonly reckoned a sign of woims,
quite removed by giving them white soap in their
pottage, or other fond. Tansy, garlic, and rue, are all
good against worms, and may be used va ious wavs.
We might here mention many other plants, both
for external and internal use, as the cabbage bark, &c.
but think the powder of tin with sethiops mineral,
and the purges of rhubarb and calomel, are more to
be depended on.
Ball’s purging vermifuge powder is a very power¬
ful medicine. It is made of equal parts of rhubarb,
scamony, and calomel, with as much double refined
suga as is equal in weight of all the other ingre¬
dients. These must be mixed together, and reduced
to a fine powder. The dose for a chil l is from ten
grains to twenty, once or twice a week. An adult
may take a drachm for a dose.
Parents who would preserve their children from
worms ought to allow them plenty of exercise in the
open air; to take cate that their food be wholesome