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AND FAMILY DISPENSATORY.. | © «157 
aftringent or windy nature, &c. It may likewife proceed from an hereditary difpofi- 
tion. Perfons in the decline -of life, and thofe who have been much afflicted with 
the gout or rheumatifm, are moft liable to it. 
~ CURE.---Perfons afflicted with the gravel or ftone fhould avoid aliments of a 
windy or heating nature, as falt meats, four fruits, &c. Their diet ought chiefly to 
confift of fuch things as tend to promote the fecretion.of urine, and to keep the body 
open. Artichokes, afparagus, fpinnage, lettuce, parfley, fuccory, purflane, turnips, 
potatoes, carrots, and raddifhes, may be fafely eaten. Onions, leeks, andcellery, are, 
in this cafe, reckoned medicinal: The moft proper drinks are whey, butter-milk, 
milk and water, barley-water; deco¢tions or infufions of the roots of marfh-mal- 
‘lows, parfley, liquorice, or of other mild mucilaginous vegetables, as linfeed, lime- 
tree buds or leaves, &c: If the patient has been accuftomed to generous liquors, he 
may drink fmall gin-punch without acid. In what is called a fit of the gravel, 
which is commonly occafioned by a ftone fticking in the ureter or fome part of the 
urinary paffages, the patient muft be bled ; warm fomentations fhould likewife be 
applied to the part affected, emollient clyfters adminiftered, and diluting mucilagi- 
nous liquors drunk, 8c. The treatment in this cafe muft be the fame as pointed - 
out for an inflammation of the kidnies and bladder, &c. Patients who are fubject 
to frequent fits of gravel in the kidnies, but have no ftone in the bladder, are advifed 
‘to drink every. morning, two or three hours before breakfaft, an Englifh pint of oyf- 
ter or cockle-fhell lime-water; for, though this quantity might be too {mall to have 
. any fenfible effect in diffolving a ftone in the bladder, yet it may very probably pre- 
> vent its growth. When a ftone is formed in the bladder, Alicant foap, and oyfter or 
“eockle-thell lime-water may be taken in the following manner: the patient mutt 
vallow every ‘day, in any form that is leaft difagreeable, an ounce of the internal 
part of Alicant foap, and drink three or four Englith pints of oyfter or cockle-fhell 
Jime-water. The foap i is to be divided into three dofes; the largeft ‘to be taken 
‘fatting i in ‘the morning early; the fecond at noon; and the third at feven in the even- 
_ ing, drinking, with each dofe a large draught of the lime-waters the remainder of 
which he may take any time betwixt dinner and fupper, inftead ‘of other liquors. 
The cauftic alkali, or foap-lees, is the medicine chiefly in vogue at prefent for the 
ftone. It may be prepared by mixing two parts of quick-lime with one of pot-athes, 3 
and fuffering them ‘to ftand till the lixiviunt be: formed, which muft be carefully 
filtrated before it be ufed. If the folution does not happen readily, a fmall quantity 
of water may be added tothe mixture. The patient mutt begin with {mall dofes of 
the Tees, as thirty or forty drops, and increafe by degrees, as faras the ftomach will 
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