The curiosities of common water, or the advantages thereof in curing cholera, intemperance, and other maladies : gathered from the writings of eminent physicians, and also from more than forty years' experience : to which are added some rules for preserving health by diet / by John Smith.
- John Smith
- Date:
- 1832
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The curiosities of common water, or the advantages thereof in curing cholera, intemperance, and other maladies : gathered from the writings of eminent physicians, and also from more than forty years' experience : to which are added some rules for preserving health by diet / by John Smith. 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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![which were so much enflamed, as to bring him very low ; but being advised by Dr. Baynard to bathe in the cold bath, he in a month's time was perfectly cured, his ulcers being healed up, contrary to the opinion of the most learned physicians. We also find mention, in the description of the Scottish islands, of an odd remedy commonly made Jaundice. ^ ^ ^^ fo]. ^ cufe Qf the jaun(]ice ; which is this : they strip the patient naked, lay him upon the ground on his belly, and pour unawares upon his back a pail of cold water. And also pains in the joints, as Dr. Curtis tells us, will be cured, by holding the part under the stream of a pump or cock ; and fomenting with cold water is commended as good to assuage hot swellings. And I know a person who had often been subject to blood-shot or inflamed eyes, who afterwards, upon the beginning of the same distemper, took, by advice, a ball of linen rags, dipt them in cold water, and applied them to the part, cooling them by new dipping as often as they grew hot: which application was continued three hours, in which time the humor was so repelled, as to be troublesome no more ; for the party, to my knowledge, hath had no sign of that dis- temper since, though the same had been very troublesome many times before. It is also advised by Dr. Gideon Harvey, to wash the eyes well twice a day in cold water, as the best Defluxwns. rernedy to prevent defluxions on them, and pre- serve the eye-sight, which it greatly comforts. And this I have found true for many years, my eyes being often apt to be dim and stiff, so that I could scarce open my eyelids ; which, upon washing for a minute with fair water, hath been felt no more for a good while after. Besides which benefit to the eyes, authors say it is also good to preserve the memory, if the whole forehead be washed twice a day ; which also is a certain cure for itching in the eyes, as authors tell us. And indeed washing with water will free mankind from a troublesome itching in any other part of the body, let it be ever so private, as Cook, in his Observa- tions on English Bodies, doth expressly declare from ex- perience. Some people are troubled with a callosity, or hardness of the bottoms of their feet, which is so troublesome, as to be a hindrance to their easy walking; for which a cure is prescribed by Dr. Cook; that is, to soak](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21155227_0030.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
