times, indeed, the skin is covered with large blotches or scabs, and 
at other times with a white scurf or scaly eruption. 
_ The itch is seldem a dangerous disease, unless when it isren- 
dered so by neglect or improper treatment. If itis suffered tocon- 
_ tinue too long, it may vitiate the whole muse of humors; and if it = 
be suddenly drove in, without proper evacuations, it may occasion 
- fevers, intlammations of the viscera, or other internal disorders, 
People ought to be extremely cautious how they take othererup- 
tions for the itch ; as the stoppage of these may be attended with —__ 
fatal consequences. Many of the eruptive disorders to which chile | 
dren are liable, have a near resemblance, and infants are often killed 1 
by being rubbed with greasy ointments that make the eruptions strike = 
suddenly in, which Nature had Ci to preserve the patient’s 
life or prevent some other malady. 
For remedies, see ** recipes.” 
SCHIRRUS AND CANCER. 
A schirrus is a hard indolent tumor, usually seated in some of fhe 
glands ; as inthe breast, the arm-pits, &c. If the tumor becomes 
large, unequal, of a livid, blackish, or leaden color, and is attended 
with violent, lancing pains, it gets the name of stone or lump cancer. 
It sometimes appears in the form of a spider or other animal, having 
body and legs, fibres, or roots,when it is usually called a spider cancer. 
When the skin is broken, and a thin acrid matter, of an abominably _ 
foetid smell, is discharged from the sore, it wanes 0 Bena ainee- 
ated cancer, or from its appearance, a rase cancer. ¥ 
Many physicians, and some too, who have had great experience ee 
as well as success in the cure of cancer, have expressed a belief 
that, at least in some instances, it is possessed of an independant 
existence, and may almost be said to have animal life. The sensa- 
tion of locomotion which the patient feels in the legs, or roots of ~ 
a spider cancer, may be taken as some confirmation of this supposi- 
tion. Dr. William Barber, a botanic physician, whose healing 
skill is known from one end of the State of New-York to the other, 
avers, that he has repeatedly found living animals in these lumps, 
and some of them an inch in length, and these were — nai 
witnesses. However, be this as it will, one thing is c it: 
most intractable and unyielding disease ; and requires pow : 
cations, and unbending perseverance, with the best of Bers 
to make it relax its hold. 
Persons after the age of forty-five, particularly women, and those 
who lead an indolent, sedentary life, or have lived in celibacy, or haye 
had no children, are most subject to this disease. It is commonly - 
confined to the glands, as the mamma, or breast, the arm-pit, the 
testicles, &c. But it is now and then to be met with in the we 
as likewise in the face, under the jaw, and other parts that are 
covered with flesh, and which at the same time are a good 
_posed to external irritation, such as the lower lip, the angles 
les, the organs of vision, the wings of the nose, tongue, 
mete pastes. of the very worst kind, with an un 
