Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 1, 1802).djvu/45

21&#93; A GU been of considerable service. T-he following remedy is also said to have been successfully employed in agues : Two. spoonfuls of the juice of sage, mixed with an equal quantity of vinegar, and taken at the ap- proach of the fit. The regular method of eradicating an ague, after the disease has been properly ushered in, by a few succes- sive paroxysms, consists in cleansing the first passages by proper laxatives and emetics, as occasion may re- quire. The patient, during the fit, should drink freely of water-gruel, and other warm diluents. The Peruvian bark may then be administered in any form best suited to the patient's sto- mach, either in decoction, infusion, tincture, or in powder mixed with Port wine. The last mode, as be- ing the most efficacious, ought, when practicable, always to be pre- ferred. Dr. Lysons has observed, that his patients derived great benefit from the use of the snake-root com- bined with bark. His recipe is as follows : two scruples of bark and one of snake-root. He says, that two or three doses rarely fail to arrest the progress of a distinct tertian, or quartan ague. Should a farther repetition of this remedy be requi- site, it will be attended with this advantage, that the disorder will be less likely to return, than if it were stopped by tire bark alone. Repeated shocks of die electrical fluid have been said to cure agues ; but this is a precarious and hazard- ous practice. Even that sovereign re- medy, the bark, has sometimes been known to fail, and yet the patient has been cured by common spiders, three or four large ones mixed up AIR [21 with homy, their legs cut off, and the bodies only retained. The folly of placing any depend- ence upon charms, and such occult modes of curing this disease, n no other reprobation than to say, that they have been adopted by the ignorant multitude, and that they have more frequently failed, than succeeded, in vanquishing an obsti- nate intermittent. Lastly, if no other means be found adequate to the inveteracy of this complaint, we cannot, in justice to Dr. Fowler, omit to mention his mineral solution, or ague-drops, so well known to all our apo Lac- caries, that they require no farthef description. Yet, convinced of their violent effects on the human system, we seriously recommend the use of the remedies above specified, before arsenic be employed as the ultimate resource. AIR, in a pure state, is a colour- less, transparent, compressible and elastic fluid; and one of the most important elements, whether we consider its application to purposes of general economy, or its effects on animated nature. It is the medium through which we breatiie, and without which w r e cannot exist. When perfectly freed from all ex- traneous and noxious particles, it may be denorriinated vital air, or .7; and in this state is capable of invigorating and supporting the human frame, in a very eminent de- gree. Mixed widi the; common in- gredients, it is called atmospheric air, or that by which we are usually surrounded. In (i the lung, and epi- demics arising from a confined or vitiated atmoi ph< re, the administra- tion of air, in a pure state, has been attended with singular sue C 3 while.