by means of Fital Air, 353 



7. How is the disease created ? In all these cases I found the 

 patients were in the habit of drinking cold water, and that at 

 night ; and nothing is more injurious than cold applied when the 

 body is warm, or hot. 



8, Have we any popular remedy for scrofula ? Miss Smith, 

 daughter of Mr. Smith, at the Feathers, Brown-street, Edgeware 

 Road, had the glands of the neck affected, with other symptoms 

 of scrofula : she had been for two years under different surgeons, 

 without benefit, when she applied to me. I ordered the juice of 

 sorrel to be taken three or four times a day, and the same to be 

 applied on linseed meal to the wounds, which when sufficiently 

 drawn were to be healed by Turner's Cerate, or any simple oint- 

 ment. 



I have now before me a list of upwards of two hundred cures 

 performed with the juice of sorrel {Acelosa acetosella) taken 

 internally, and applied outwardly. Mrs. Shoubert, of Hackney, 

 is now before me, who was given over by Mr. Toulmin, of Hack- 

 ney; but by inhaling the vital air her health was restored in a 

 most extraordinary manner. A scrofulous wound near the clavicle 

 appeared; but by means of sorrel juice this was removed. You 

 may recollect, that this remedy we derived from the popular use 

 of it in Ireland ; and I have myself a little son, too young to in- 

 hale the vital air, who, after being cured of water in the brain, 

 which left him paralytic on one side, from debility became scro- 

 fulous ; and having battled through the winter, with no healing 

 of the wounds, I have stationed him on Highgate Hill, oppo- 

 site the Pound, where there is in front of the house a field filled 

 with the wild sorrel, which he greedily eats, and he also drinks 

 the juice; and it is applied to his wounds with the most manifest 

 advantage : such is my confidence, from an experience of thirty 

 years and upwards, in this simple remedy, so well adapted for 

 very young children. When the wounds are sufficiently drawn 

 with the sorrel juice mixed with the linseed meal, I after- 

 wards apply any common ointment, still continuing it internally. 

 Hoping this communication may have the desired effect of 

 extending the knowledge and use of the most mild, yet efficacious 

 remedies, in the most dire of our diseases, 



I have the honour to conclude, 



Dear sir, &c. 

 RouERT John Thornton. 



LIX. True apparent Right Ascension of Dr. Maskklyne's 

 3G Stars for every Day in the Year 1821, By the Rev. 

 J. Groobv. 



[Continued frooi p. 37I-] 



Vol.57. No. 277. JWay 1821. Vy 1821. 



