Diseases > Domestic medicine

460 buchan’s
fur or flannel. The food must be light, and an Eng¬
lish pint of the decoction of woods or sarsaparilla
may be drunk daily. I have sometimes discussed hard
tumours, which had the appearance of beginning
cancers, by a course of this kind.
Should the tumour however not yield to this treat¬
ment, but on the contrary, become larger aud harder,
it will be proper to extirpate it, either by the knife or
caustic. Indeed, whenever this can be done with
safety, the sooner it is done the better. It can answer
no purpose to extirpate a cancer after the constitution
is ruined, or the whole mass of humours corrupted
by it. This however is the common way, which makes
the operation so seldom succeed. Few people will
submit to the extirpation till death stares them in the
face ; whereas, if it were done early, the patient’s life
would not be endangered by the operation, and it
would generally prove a radical cure.
When the cancer is so situated that it cannot be
cut off, or if the patient will not submit to the opera¬
tion, such medicines as will mitigate or relieve the
most urgent symptoms may be used. Dr. Home says,
that half a grain of the corrosive sublimate of
mercury, dissolved in a proper quantity of brandy,
and taken night and morning, will often be of service
in cancers of the face and nose. He likewise recom¬
mends an infusion of solanum or night-shade, in
cancers of the breasts.
But the medicine most in repute at present for this
disease is hemlock. Dr. Stork, physician at Vienna,
has of late recommended the extract of this plant as
very efficacious in cancers of every kind. The Doctor
says, he has given some hundred weights of it with¬
out ever hurting any body, and often with manifest
advantage. He advises the patient however to begin
with small doses, as two or three grains, and to