New guide to health, or, Botanic family physician : containing a complete system of practice upon a plan entirely new : with a description of the vegetables made use of, and directions for preparing and administering them to cure disease : to which is added a description of several cases of disease attended by the author, with the mode of treatment and cure / by Samuel Thomson.

  • Thomson, Samuel, 1769-1843.
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: New guide to health, or, Botanic family physician : containing a complete system of practice upon a plan entirely new : with a description of the vegetables made use of, and directions for preparing and administering them to cure disease : to which is added a description of several cases of disease attended by the author, with the mode of treatment and cure / by Samuel Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    lighten the surrounding air till you can raise the inward heat so as to get the determining power to the surface. Begin with a small stone and as life gains increase the steam as the patient can bear it; if the distress is great, give more hot medicine inside, and as soon as an erfuili- brium takes place the pain will cease. In all cases of this kind the difficulty cannot be removed without applied heat to the body, and is more natural by steam than by anv other means that can be made use of. In cases of lon^ standing, where the patient has been run down with mer- cury and left in a cold and obstructed state, liable to rheu- matism and ohter similar complaints, they cannot be cured with medicine without applied heat by steam, as nothing will remove mercury but heat. When a patient is carried through a course of my medi- cine and steamed, who has been long under mercurial treatment; and while under the operation of the steam, when the heat is at the highest, the face will swell, in con- sequence of the poisonous vapour being condensed by the air, the face being open to it. To relieve this put them in bed, and take a hot stone wrapped in several thicknesses of cloth wet witli water, pouring on a little vinegar, and making a live steam ; put it in the hed and cover the head with the clothes and let them breathe the steam as hot as can be borne, until the sweat covers the swelled part. This will in about fifteen or twenty minutes throw out the poison and the swelling will abate This method also is of great service in agues and teeth-ache caused by cold ; and many other cases of obstruction from the same cause, especially young children stuffed on the lungs. To steam small children, the best way is to let them sit in the lap of a person, covering both svith a blanket and set over the steam, pouring a little vinegar on the stone: or it may be done in bed with a hot stone, wrap- ped in cloths wet with water, putting on a little vinegar : and covering them with the bed cloths laid loosely over them ; but in this way you cannot exercise so good judg- ment in tempering the steam as when you are so steamed with them- If the child appears languid and faint, the