Page:Boating - Woodgate - 1888.pdf/204

 reported; any tenderness of joint or sinew instantly made known.

To return to boils. If a boil is observed in the pimple stage, it may be scotched and killed. Painting it with iodine will drive it away, in the writer's experience. ‘Stonehenge’, advises ‘a wash of nitrate of silver, of fifteen to twenty grains to the ounce, to be painted over the spot. Mr. Brickwood also, while quoting ‘Stonehenge’ on this point, recommends bathing with bay salt and water.

Anyhow, these external means of repression do not of them- selves suffice. They only bung up the valcano ; the best step is to cure the blood, otherwise it will break out somewhere else. The writer’s favourite remedy is a dose of syrup of iodide of iron; one teaspoonful in a wineglass of water, just before or after a meal, is about the best thing. A second dose of half the amount may be taken twenty-four hours later, This medicine is rather constipating ; a slight aperient, if only a dose of Carls- bad salts before breakfast or a seidlitz powder, may be taken to counteract itin this respect. It is a strong but prompt remedy ; anything is better than to have a member of a crew eventually unable to sit down for a week or so! An extra glass of port after dinner, and plenty of green food, will help to rectify the dis- ordered blood.

Another good interna] remedy is brewer's yeast, a table- spoonful twice a day after meals. Watermen swear by this, and Mr. Brickwood personally recommends it.

Tf care is taken a boil ean be thus nipped in the bud (figu- ratively) ; to do this /ieradly is the very worst thing. Some people pinch off the head of a small boil. This only adds fuel to the fire. If a boil has become large, red, and angry before any remedies are applied, it is too late to drive it in, and the next best thing is to coax it out, This is done with strong linseed paultices. A doctor should be called in, and be per- suaded to lance it, to the core, and to squeeze it, so soon as he judges it to be well filled with pus.

Rats used to be more common twenty-five years ago than