116 JEROME CARD AN. 



through the palate, the nose, and the sutures of the skull, 

 especially the coronal suture. 



Applications to the palate he did not much like, as 

 approaching too near to the seat of the disease. 



An admirable prescription which he would recommend 

 for the procuring of a good discharge by the nose was the 

 following: Take of goat's or cow's milk and of water, of 

 each half a pint, mix and dissolve in them two grains of 

 elaterium ; let this be drawn through the nostrils when 

 the patient has an empty stomach. 



As a valuable application over the coronal suture, which 

 itself had cured an asthma of seven years' standing, the 

 physician recommended an ointment to be applied over 

 the shaven crown composed of Greek pitch and ship's 

 tar, white mustard, euphorbium, and honey of anathardus, 

 which might be sharpened, if requisite, by the addition of 

 blister fly. This cerate, he said, sometimes fetches out 

 two pints of water in the four-and-twenty hours, and 

 sometimes only three or four ounces. It was no easy 

 nightcap to suggest to an archbishop. Another remedy 

 that he would recommend, was water from the baths of 

 Lucca, freely drank for eight days, and on the eighth day 

 dropped upon the head for half an hour, over the coronal 

 suture. 



1 Elaterium is a sediment from pulp yielded by a plant called the 

 Squirting Cucumber. It surpasses all drugs in its power of producing 

 watery discharge from the mucous membranes. Two grains of elate- 

 rium, as prepared carefully in these days, would be a fearful overdose. 



