INFLAMMATIONS. 



63 



necessary soon after the first, it will then be peoper to delay the 

 blister till after the second bleeding, when it may be supposed 

 that any farther bleeding may be postponed till the irritation 

 arising from the blister shall have ceased. It may be frequent- 

 ly necessary in this disease to repeat the blistering ; and, in 

 that case, the plasters should always be applied somewhere on 

 the thorax ; for, when applied to more distant parts, they have 

 little effect. The keeping the blistered parts open, and making 

 what is called a perpetual blister, has much less effect than a 

 fresh blistering. 



CCCLXXIII As this disease often terminates by an ex- 

 pectoration, so various means of promoting this have been pro- 

 posed ; but none of them appeared to be very effectual ; and 

 some, being acrid stimulant substances, cannot be very safe. 



The gums usually employed seem too heating : squills seem 

 to be less so ; but they are not very powerful, and sometimes 

 inconvenient by the constant nausea they induce. 



The volatile alkali may be of service as an expectorant ; but 

 it should be reserved for an advanced state of the disease. 



Mucilaginous and oily demulcents appear to be useful, by 

 allaying that acrimony of the mucus which occasions too fre- 

 quent coughing ; and which coughing prevents the stagnation 

 and thickening of the mucus, and thereby its becoming mild. 



The receiving into the lungs the steams of warm water im- 

 pregnated with vinegar, has often proved useful in promoting ex- 

 pectoration. 



But of all other remedies, the most powerful for this purpose 

 are antimonial medicines, given in nauseating doses, as in 

 CLXXIX. Of these, however, I have not found the kermes 

 mineral more efficacious than emetic tartar, or antimonial wine ; 

 and the dose of the kermes is much more uncertain than that of 

 the others. 



" As all the fetid gums seem to be determined to the lungs, 

 and to promote expectoration, so I have found the asafcetida 

 the most powerful for this purpose, and more powerful than the 

 ammoniac so frequently employed. 



" With regard to the employment of squills as an expector- 

 ant, it is hardly necessary to observe, that it must be given in 

 such small doses as may not occasion its acting upon the stom- 



