2^2 On the various Rettiedies recommended 



Sea-bathing was for a long time held to be a fovercigil 

 cure, if timeoufly rcforted to : the many melancholy failnres^ 

 however, of this boafted remedy have long fince convinced 

 medical praftitioners, that even in thofe cafes vi'herc a fup- 

 pofed cure had been effeiled, there had aftually been no dif- 

 eafe; the faliva in fuch cafes having been previoufly cleanfed 

 from the tooth of the animal that infli£led the bile, by pall- 

 ing through thick clothes before it reached the patient's Ikin. 



Mercurial friiSlions, there are reafons for believing, have 

 fometimes proved beneficial in the hydrophobia. Dr. Fo- 

 thergill feenis inclined to afcribe their good effedl more to 

 the ingredients with which the mercury is made into an 

 ointment, than to the mercury itfclf : But of this hereafter. 

 Dr. Metee afcribes them to the volatile alkali which the 

 mercury dlfengages from the ammoniacal fait contained in 

 the lymph of the animals. 



The king of Pruflia, in the year 1777, purchafed from a 

 Silefian peafant a remedy for the hydrophobia, which he or- 

 dered to be kept prepared in all the apothecaries' fhops, and 

 by all furgeons. The bafis of this remedy is the melo'e pro- 

 fcarahcEiis et viajaUs^ (oil-beetle*,) a black unftuous infc6t^ 

 which, when touched, emits from all its articulations a brown 

 oily liquor, and on that account it has been called the oil- 

 beetle. It is found in almoft every country in the fpring. 

 It is called fometimes the farrier's beetle, becaufe the far- 

 riers prepare from it a blillering ointment by pounding three 

 hundred of the infefts in a pound of oil of laurel. The fol- 

 lowing is the method of preparing the anti-hydrophobic re- 

 medy of Praffia : 



R. Take twenty-four beetles preferved in honey, two grains 

 of ebony wood, one grain of Virginian fnake-root, one grain 

 of filings of lead, twenty grains of the mofs of the afh-tree, 

 four ounces of theriac, and a little of the honey in which 

 the infcfts have been preferved. 



The dole of this opiate varies according to the age and fex 

 qf the patients . It is to be taken once in a dofe of two grains 

 for male adults, a grain and a half for females, and a grain 



* See C. T*. Scbivarts de hydrophobia, cjufqui fpcc'Jico Mehi majali et 

 frnji-arabao. Hjtlse i7'8j. 



for 



