CHAP. XV.Of fluxes.
Aged people bear a too costive habit much better than they do fluxes or purgings: for they are easily weakened; and nothing does it more than these discharges.
The great rule, in all the disorders of agedpersons, is to take them in time. A purging will be cured by proper diet, when it is regarded early: otherwise medicines must be called in; and perhaps they will be ineffectual.
The quantity of solid food must in this case be reduced: but it should not be left off wholly. A drink should be made of burnt hartshorn and comfry root, two ounces of each boiled in two quarts of water to three pints, the liquor poured clear off, and drank warm with a little red wine. This should be the common drink.
Rice-milk, with some cinnamon boiled in it, is excellent for breakfast; and rice-pudding best of all things for supper; and this two hours before bed-time. Sea-biscuit should on this occasion be eat instead of bread; and the patient must use more than ordinary exercise, to promote perspiration.