Diseases > Domestic medicine

38'J BUCHAN’S
the legs. Bleeding in the feet or ancles is also neces¬
sary, and warm stomachic purges. The patient ought
to keep in bed for the most part, if there be any
signs of inflammation, and should be very careful not
to catch cold.
If it attacks the stomach with a sense of cold, the
most warm cordials me necessary ; strong wine, boiled
up with cinnamon or other spices ; cinnamon-water ;
peppermint-water; and even brandy or rum. The
patient should keep his bed, and endeavour to pro¬
mote a sweat by drinking warm liquors ; and if he
should be troubled with a nausea, or inclination to
vomit, he may drink camomile-tea, or any thing that
will make him vomit freely.
When the gout attacks the kidneys, and imitates
gravel-pains, the patient ought to drink freely of a
decoction of marsh-mallows, and to have the parts
fomented with warm water. An emollient clyster
ought likewise to be given, and afterwards an opiate.
If the pain be very violent, twenty or thirty drops of
laudanum may be taken in a cup of the decoction.
Persons who have had the gout should be very atten¬
tive to any complaints that may happen to them
about the time when they have reason to expect a
return of the fit. The gout imitates many other
disorders, and by being mistaken for them and
treated improperly, is often diverted from its
regular course, to the great danger of the patient’s life.
Those who never had the gout, but who, from
their constitution or manner of living, have reasou to
expect it, ought likewise to be very circumspect
with regard to its first approach. If the disease,
by wrong conduct or improper medicines, be diverted
from its proper course, the miserable patient has a
chance to be ever after tormented with head achs,
coughs pains of the ctomach and intestines; and