Diseases > Domestic medicine

DOMESTIC MEDICINE.- 565
flammation will terminate, yet a probable conjecture
may be formed with regard to the event, from a
knowledge of the patient’s age and constitution.
Inflammations happening in a slight degree upon
colds, and without any previous indisposition, will
most probably be disperted : those which follow close
upon a fever, or happen to persons of a gross habit
of body, will generally suppurate; and those which
attack very old people, or persons of a dropsical
habit, will have a strong tendency to gangrene.
If the inflammation be s’-ight, and the constitution
sound, the dispersion ought always to be attempted.
This will be best promoted by a slender diluting
diet, plentiful bleeding, and repeated purges. The
part itself must be fomented, and, if the skin be very
tense, it may be embrocated with a mixture of three-
fourths of sweet oil, and one-fourth of vinegar, and
afterwards covered with a piece of wax-plaister.
If, notwithstanding these applications, the symp¬
tomatic fever increases, and the tumour becomes
larger, with violent pain and pulsation, it will be
proper to promote the suppuration. The best appli¬
cation for this purpose is a soft poultice, which may
be renewed twice a-day. If the suppuration pro¬
ceeds but slowly, a raw onion cut small or bruised
may be spread upon the poultice. Vhen the abscess
is ripe or fit for opening, which may easily be known
from the thinness of the skin in the most prominent
part of it, a fluctuation of matter, which may be felt
under the finger, and, generally speaking, an abate¬
ment of the pain, it may be opened tither with a
lancet or by means of caustic.
The last way in which an inflammattuu terminates,
is in a gangrene or mortification, the approach of
which may be known by the following symptoms :
| the inflammation loses its redness, aid becomes