Diseases > Domestic medicine

very proper plan, provided the infection has been
totally eradicated before-hand: but when that is not
the case, and the patient trusts to the whey, for
finishing his cure, he will often be disappointed. I
have frequently known the disease return with all its
virulence after a course of goat-whey, even when
that course had been thought quite sufficient for com¬
pleting the cure.
One of the most unfortunate circumstances attend¬
ing patients in this disease, is the necessity they are
often laid under of being soon well. This induces
them to take medicine too fast, and to leave it off too
soon. A few grains more of medicine, or a few days
longer confinement, would often be sufficient to per¬
fect the cure; whereas, by neglect of these, a small
degree of virulence is still left in the humours, which
gradually vitiates, and at length contaminates the
whole mass. To avoid this, we would advise, that the
patient should never leave off taking medicine imme¬
diately upon the disappearing of the symptoms, but
continue it for some time after, gradually lessening
the quantity, till there is sufficient ground to believe
that the disease is entirely eradicated.
It is not only difficult, but absolutely impossible,
to ascertain the exact degree of virulence that may
ttend the disease ; for which reason it will always be
a much safer rule to continue the use of medicine too
long, than to leave it off too soon. This seems to be
the leading maxim of a modern practitioner, of some
note f >r the venereal disease, who always orders his
patient to perform a quarantine of at least forty days,
during which time he takes forty bottles of, I sup¬
pose, a strong decoction of sarsaparilla, or some
other anti-venereal simple. Whoever takes this
method, and adds a sufficient quantity of corrosive
sublimate, or some other active preparation of mer-