USEFUL PROJECTS. 



339 



Ittust be employed. When it is 

 applied cold, and in great qunnti- 

 ties, it is apt to bring on a chi'l- 

 ncss and shivering, tt'hich I have 

 alvvavs removed readily by wet- 

 ting the feet with cloths dipped in 

 warm water, and giving the patient 

 a litte warm watci to drink, with 

 some spirits added to it, so as to 

 be rather stronger than good punch. 

 If the arms or hands are badly in- 

 jured, I keep them, during the 

 cure, alwiys slung; and, if the legs, 

 I endeavour to support them so as 

 to procure as much ease to the pa- 

 tient as possible. 



Besides many people scalded, with 

 boiling water, &c. I have cured a 

 variety of burns, occasioned bv 

 melted lead and brass, liquid pig 

 iron, red-hot bar iron, the fiames 

 of spirits, burning coals, linen, &c. 

 quick lime, and by the explosion 

 of gunpowder ; and there is no 

 part of the body that one or other 

 of my patients has not been burnt 

 or scalded on. 



One child, in going backwards, 

 was thrown down by a pot stand- 

 ing on the floor, newly taken oft' 

 the fire, and almost full of boiling 

 broth, and fell into, or rather sat 

 down in it, and scalded in a very 

 bad manner his anus, scrotum, and 

 parts adjacent; but was healed in 

 a surprisingly sliort time, the vine- 

 gar having been early applied : and 

 a blacksmith once was relieved and 

 cured, who was in great agony from 

 B spark of hot iron which ilew into 

 his eye from a piece he was strik- 

 ing on an anvil. In this ca.ic, the 

 vinegar was dilated with water to 

 one-half of its strength, and the 

 patient let some of it into tlic eye. 

 He also kept tlie eye shut, and 

 bath'^d it with vinegn' of a full 

 strength. 



In what manner my appllc.ntions 

 act, so as to prevent marks and 

 scars, I do not pretend to explain ; 

 but I uniformly observed that, when 

 used in time, they entirely check 

 suppuration in all slight cases, and 

 that even in many severe ones, pus 

 or matter is hardly ever seen. In 

 deep burns too^ attended with loss 

 of substance, the discharge must 

 appear astonishingly little to those 

 who have been accustomed to see 

 sores cured in the ordinary way.— ^ 

 It has been commonly remarked, 

 that burns and scalds spread or en- 

 large for eight or ten days ; but, 

 with my treatment, they visibly en- 

 large from the beginning. The 

 new skin begins to form round the 

 extremities of even a bad sore, 

 sometimes so early as the second 

 day ; and in the middle, wherfe 

 there has been a loss of substance, 

 the nev/ flesh shoots up from the 

 bottom with rather a fungous ap- 

 pearance, the surface of it be- 

 ing unequal, somewhat resembling 

 heads of pins, or the candying of 

 honey (but of a flesh colour), and 

 continues gradually to grow till it 

 rises to the height of the sound 

 flesh around it, when the skin forms 

 at once without incrustation. — 

 When I began the practice, indeed, 

 (I do not speak of the face, my 

 treatment of it, and the effects there- 

 of having always been much the 

 same,) I used the vinegar in bad 

 cases much longer than I do now, 

 and did not apply the poultices for 

 twenty-four hours, or oftentimes 

 more j a dry scab, stained by die 

 vinegar of a black ink-colour (easily 

 accounted for), would then form 

 over all the excoriated places, 

 and under it there was always 

 matter. The poultices which were 

 ihen applied, brought ofl'' the 



Z % scab 



