895. Prophylactics
Prophylactics are remedies employed to prevent the attack of any particular disease, such as quinine, &c.
896. Purgatives
Purgatives are medicines that promote the evacuation of the bowels, such as senna, aloes, jalap, salts.
897. Refrigerants
Refrigerants are medicines which suppress an unusual heat of the body, such as wood-sorrel, tamarind, &c.
898. Rubefacients
Rubefacients are medicaments which cause redness of the skin, such as mustard, &c.
899. Sedatives
Sedatives are medicines which depress the nervous energy, and destroy sensation, so as to compose, such as foxglove. (
See
Paregorics
.)
900. Sialogogues
Sialogogues are medicines which promote the flow of saliva or spittle, such as salt, calomel, &c.
901. Soporifics
Soporifics are medicines which induce sleep, such as hops, &c.
902. Stimulants
Stimulants are remedies which increase the action of the heart and arteries, or the energy of the part to which they are applied, such as food, wine, spirits, ether, sassafras, which is an internal stimulant, and savine, which is an external one.
903. Stomachics
Stomachics restore the tone of the stomach, such as gentian, &c.
904. Styptics
Styptics are medicines which constrict the surface of a part, and prevent the effusion of blood, such as kino, Friar's balsam, extract of lead, and ice.
905. Sudorifics
Sudorifics promote profuse perspiration or sweating, such as ipecacuanha, antimony, James's powder, ammonia.
906. Tonics
Tonics give general strength to the constitution, restore the natural energies, and improve the tone of the system, such as all the vegetable bitters, most of the minerals, also some kinds of food, wine, and beer.
907. Vesicants
Vesicants are medicines which blister, such as strong liquid ammonia, &c.
908. Special Rules for the Prevention of Cholera
The Loveliest Bird has No Song.
909. Rules for the Preservation of Health
910. Fresh Air
Pure atmospheric air is composed of nitrogen, oxygen, and a
very
small proportion of carbonic acid gas. Air once breathed has lost the chief part of its oxygen, and acquired a proportionate increase of carbonic acid gas.
Therefore
, health requires that we breathe the same air once only.
911. Diet and Exercise
The solid part of our Bodies is continually wasting, and requires to be repaired by fresh substances.
Therefore
, food which is to repair the loss, should be taken with due regard to the exercise and waste of the body.
912. Water
The fluid part of our bodies also wastes constantly; there is but one fluid in animals, which is water.
Therefore
, water only is necessary, and no artifice can produce a better drink.
913. Proportion of Food and Drink
The fluid of our bodies is to the solid in proportion as nine to one.
Therefore
, a like proportion should prevail in the total amount of food taken.
914. Sunshine
Light exercises an important influence upon the growth and vigour of animals and plants.
Therefore
, our dwellings should freely admit the solar rays.
915. Bad Odours
Decomposing animal and vegetable substances yield various noxious gases which enter the lungs and corrupt the blood.
Therefore
, all impurities should be kept away from our abodes, and every precaution be observed to secure a pure atmosphere.
916. Warmth
Warmth is essential to all the bodily functions.
Therefore
, an equal bodily temperature should be maintained by exercise, by clothing, or by fire.
917. Exercise and Clothing
Exercise warms, invigorates and purifies the body; clothing preserves the warmth the body generates; fire imparts warmth externally.
Therefore
, to obtain and preserve warmth, exercise and clothing are preferable to fire.
918. Ventilation
Fire consumes the Oxygen of the air, and produces noxious gases.
Therefore
, the air is less pure in the presence of candles, gas, or coal fire, than otherwise, and the deterioration should be repaired by increased ventilation.
So the Loveliest Woman may Lack Virtue.
919. Clean Skin
The skin is a highly-organized membrane, full of minute pores, cells, bloodvessels, and nerves; it imbibes moisture or throws it off, according to the state of the atmosphere and the temperature of the body. It also "breathes," as do the lungs (though less actively). All the internal organs sympathize with the skin.
Therefore
, it should be repeatedly cleansed.
920. Over-Work
Late hours and anxious pursuits exhaust the nervous system, and produce disease and premature death.
Therefore, the hours of labour and study should be short.
921. Body and Mind
Mental and bodily exercise are equally essential to the general health and happiness.
Therefore
, labour and study should succeed each other.
922. Over-Indulgence
Man will live most healthily upon simple solids and fluids, of which a sufficient but temperate quantity should be taken.
Therefore
, over indulgence in strong drinks, tobacco, snuff, opium, and all mere indulgences, should be avoided.
923. Moderate Temperature
Sudden alternations of heat and cold are dangerous (especially to the young and the aged).
Therefore
, clothing, in quantity and quality, should be adapted to the alternations of night and day, and of the seasons; and drinking cold water when the body is hot, and hot tea and soups when cold, are productive of many evils.
924. Summary
Moderation in eating and drinking, short hours of labour and study, regularity in exercise, recreation, and rest, cleanliness, equanimity of temper and equality of temperature, —these are the great essentials to that which surpasses all wealth,
health of mind and body
.
925. Homœopathy
926. Principle of Homœopathy
As homœopathy is now practised so widely and, indeed, preferred to the older system in many families, the Domestic Pharmacopœia could scarcely lay claim to be considered complete without a brief mention of the principal remedies used and recommended by homœopathic practitioners, and the disorders for which these remedies are specially applicable. The principle of homœopathy is set forth in the Latin words "
similia similibus curantur
," the meaning of which is "likes are cured by likes."
The meaning of this is simply that the homœopathist in order to cure a disease, administers a medicine which would produce in a perfectly healthy subject, symptoms
like
, but not
identical
with or the
same
as, the symptoms to counteract which the medicine is given. The homœopathic practitioner, therefore, first makes himself thoroughly acquainted with the symptoms that are exhibited by the sufferer; having ascertained these, in order to neutralize them and restore the state of the patient's health to a state of equilibrium, so to speak, he administers preparations that would produce symptoms of a like character in persons in good health.
It is not said, be it remembered, that the drug can produce in a healthy person the disease from which the patient is suffering: it is only advanced by homœopathists that the drug given has the power of producing in a person in health, symptoms similar to those of the disease under which the patient is languishing, and that the correct mode of treatment is to counteract the disease symptoms by the artificial production of similar symptoms by medicinal means, or in other words, to suit the medicine to the disorder, by a previously acquired knowledge of the effects of the drug, by experiment on a healthy person.
927. Allopathy
Allopathy is the name given to the older treatment of disorders, and the name is obtained from the fact, that the drugs given, do not produce symptoms corresponding to those of the disease for whose relief they are administered as in homœopathy. The introduction of the term is contemporary with homœopathy itself. It was merely given to define briefly the distinction that exists between the rival modes of treatment, and it has been accepted and adopted by all medical men who have no faith in homœopathy, and the treatment that its followers prescribe.
Deep Rivers Flow with Silent Majesty.
928. Comparison
Allopathic treatment is said to be experimental, while homeopathic treatment is based on certainty, resulting from experience. The allopathist tries various drugs, and if one medicine or one combination of drugs fails, tries another; but the homœopathist administers only such medicaments as may be indicated by the symptoms of the patient. If two drugs are given, as is frequently, and perhaps generally, the case, it is because the symptoms exhibited are of such a character that they cannot be produced in a healthy person by the action of one and the same drug, and, consequently cannot be counteracted or neutralized by the action of a single drug.
929. Homœopathic Medicines
Homœopathic medicines are given in the form of globules or tinctures, the latter being generally preferred by homeopathic practitioners. When contrasted with the doses of drugs given by allopathists, the small doses administered by homœopathists must at first sight appear wholly in adequate to the purpose for which they are given; but homœopathists, whose dilution and trituration diffuse the drug given throughout the vehicle in which it is administered, argue that by this
extension of its surface
the active power of the drug is greatly increased; and that there is reason in this argument is shown by the fact that large doses of certain drugs administered for certain purposes will pass through the system without in any way affecting those organs, which will be acted on most powerfully by the very same drugs when administered in much smaller doses. Thus a small dose of sweet spirit of nitre will act on the skin and promote perspiration, but a large dose will act as a diuretic only, and exert no influence on the skin.
930. Treatment of Ailments by Homœopathy
Great stress is laid by homœopathists on attention to diet, but not so much so in the present day as when the system was first introduced. The reader will find a list of articles of food that may and may not be taken in
par
.
961
. For complete direction on this point, and on diseases and their treatment and remedies, he must be referred to works on this subject by Dr. Richard Epps and others. All that can be done here is to give briefly a few of the more common ailments "that flesh is heir to," with the symptoms by which they are indicated, and the medicines by which they may be alleviated and eventually cured.
931. Asthma
Asthma, an ailment which should be referred in all cases to the medical practitioner.
Symptoms
. Difficulty of breathing, with cough, either spasmodic and without expectoration, or accompanied with much expectoration.
Medicines
. Aconitum napellus, especially with congestion or slight spitting of blood; Antimonium tartaricum for wheezing and rattling in the chest; Arsenicum for chronic asthma; ipecacuanha; Nux vomica.
932. Bilious Attacks
Bilious attacks, if attended with diarrhœa and copious evacuations of a bright yellow colour.
Medicines
. Bryonia, if arising from sedentary occupations, or from eating and drinking too freely; or Nux vomica and Mercurius in alternation, the former correcting constipation and the latter nausea, fulness at the pit of the stomach, and a foul tongue.
933. Bronchitis
Symptoms
. Catarrh accompanied with fever, expectoration dark, thick, and sometimes streaked with blood; urine dark, thick, and scanty.
Medicines
. Aconitum napellus, especially in earlier stages; Bryonia for pain in coughing and difficulty of breathing; Antimonium tartaricum, loose cough with much expectoration and a feeling of, and tendency to, suffocation; Ipecacuanha, accumulation of phlegm in bronchial tubes and for children.
Shallow Brooks are Noisy.
934. Bruises and Wounds
For all bruises, black eyes, etc., apply Arnica lotion; for slight wounds, after washing well with cold water, apply Arnica plaster; to stop bleeding when ordinary means fail, and for larger wounds, apply concentrated tincture of Calendula.
935. Cold in the Head or Catarrh
Symptoms
. Feverish feeling generally, and especially about the head, eyes, and nose, running from, and obstruction of, nose; soreness and irritation of the throat and bronchial tubes.
Medicines
. Aconitum napellus for feverish symptoms; Belladonna for sore throat and headache with inclination to cough; Mercurius for running from nose and sneezing; Nux vomica for stoppage of nostrils; Chamomilla for children and women, for whom Pulsatilla is also useful in such cases.