Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 1, 1802).djvu/287

Rh oily food, especially butter and fat meat; to abandon hot liquors, such as tea, coffee, punch, &c. to regulate the depressing passions of grief, anger, and anxiety; to exchange a hasty and irascible for a more placid and composed temper; and on the whole to pursue a calm, steady, and temperate course of life.

Vitiated Bile, is a common disease in infants, who are suckled by intemperate or passionate nurses; or, in consequence of their being fed with improper nutriment, such as viscid pap made of flour, instead of biscuit or well baked bread; animal food, before they are twelve months old; gingerbread and pastry. This complaint manifests itself by green stools, and an acrid quality of the bile, which even excoriates the flesh: the child expresses its pain by incessant crying, and drawing up of the legs. Nature, therefore, frequently removes the evil by copious evacuations, which are spontaneously excited by the acrimonious state of the humours. Hence the impropriety of administering chalk clysters combined with laudanum, or other cordials, and thus in a manner locking up the poison within the intestines; while the infant becomes most effectually intoxicated. Thence arise convulsions, enlargement of the mesentery, a principal, though remote, cause of consumption; the scald head; and scrophula in all its forms.—Instead of following those dangerous practices, which are calculated only to aggravate the complaint, two circumstances ought to be attended to, namely. 1. To remove the stimulating matter, by repeated small doses of tamarinds, combined with a solution of manna; and 2. To counteract the preternatural weakness and irritability of the intestinal canal, by the addition of gum arabic, powder of salep-root, or a little jelly made of Iceland moss. In cases, however, where considerable acidity prevails, it will be advisable to give a few grains of magnesia, in intermediate doses: but, if the spasmodic strictures of the abdomen continue, a medical practitioner should be consulted, whether it be proper to have recourse to a few drops of laudanum, or paregoric elixir, remedies which ought never to be intrusted to dabblers in medicine.  BILL, in husbandry and mechanics, an edged tool, made of iron, with a curvated point. It is much used by gardeners, for pruning trees, and by plumbers and basket-makers. When fitted to a short handle, it is called a hand-bill; when to a long one, a hedge-bill.  , in law, a declaration in writing, either of some injury which the plaintiff has suffered from the defendant, or an offence committed by the person complained of, against some law or statute of the realm.  , in commerce, a security for the payment of money given under the hand of the debtor, by which he is bound to pay the sum specified either on demand, or at some future day, according to the agreement of the parties.

In case of failure, the payment may be legally enforced. These bills must be written on stamped paper: if under 30l. the duty is 8d.; if above 30l. and not exceeding 50l. it is 1s.; above 50l. and not exceeding 100l. the duty is 1s. 4d.; and above 100l. and not exceeding 200l. it is 2s.  , is an obligation signed on behalf of a company of bankers, by one of their cashiers,