Volume 1

The family physician: being a collection of useful family remedies / [Hugh Smith].

  • Smith, Hugh, 1736?-1789
Date:
[between 1770 and 1779]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The family physician: being a collection of useful family remedies / [Hugh Smith]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    22/78 (page 10)
    C IO ] The fit being put by, a fecond ounce ftiould be taken in the like fmall dofes within the three following days, at the diftance of about fix or eight hours; the patient may now reft fix days, unlefs figns of the ague's return require the bark to be repeated fooner, when a third ounce is to be taken in like manner, a dofe every fix or eight hours; another week being elapfed, a fourth ounce is alfo to be adminiftered ; when you may take your leave of them, and be pretty well allured they will not be fubjedt to a return. The common mixture to give it in, may be made of three quarters of a pint of fpring water, and a quarter of a pint of good French brandy, fweetened with a bit of fugar, a tea-cupful of which fhould be taken with each dofe; mix the powder in a little of it, and drink the remainder after it. If it purges, which is oftentimes the cafe,, it fhould be given in a little cinnamon tea; fhould not that anfwer, two, three, or four drops of laudanum muft be added to each dofe. If, on the contrary, the bark fhould bind, a few grains of rhu¬ barb may be given with each dofe as long as you fee neceffary. Above the age of fourteen it will require this quantity to cure the ague, under thefe years your judgment muft direct you to decreafe it; the manner of giving it muft be exa&ly the fame. BARK DECOCTION. We frequently, and with fuccefs, for children, and thofe of delicate conftitutions, boil bruifed bark a long while in water, and give the ftrained liquor inftead of the powder in fubftance; the proportion is, an ounce in two or three pints of water, till you can pour off one. This method of adminiftering the bark is, in my opinion, always to be preferred to the powder when pati¬ ents are much reduced in their ftrength. In agues and intermittent fevers this decodtion muft be given to bear a proportion to the quantity of bark before ordered, and a tea-fpoonful or two of brandy may be added to each dofe. This preparation will fre¬ quently