INFLAMMATIONS. 83 



CCCCXXIX. Writers, in treating of the cure of nephritis, 

 have commonly at the same time treated of the cure of the 

 Calculus renalis. But, though this may often produce neph- 

 ritis, it is to be considered as a distinct and separate disease ; 

 and what I have to offer as to the mode of treating it, must be 

 reserved to its proper place. Here I shall treat only of the 

 cure of the Nephritis vera or idiopathica. 



CCCCXXX. The cure of this proceeds upon the general 

 plan, by bleeding, external fomentation, frequent emollient 

 glysters, antiphlogistic purgatives, and the free use of mild and 

 demulcent liquids. The application of blisters is hardly ad- 

 missible ; or, at least, will require great care, to avoid any con- 

 siderable absorption of the cantharides. 



CCCCXXXI. The Cystitis, or inflammation of the bladder, 

 is seldom a primary disease ; and therefore is not to be treated 

 of here. The treatment of it, so far as necessary to be explained, 

 may be readily understood from what has been already delivered. 



" Blistering, a most useful remedy in most abdominal and 

 thoracic inflammations, cannot however be employed in the case 

 of Nephritis, and much less in Cystitis ; and for this obvious 

 reason, Cantharides are in consequence of almost every ex- 

 ternal application, carried to the urinary passages, and frequent- 

 ly produce an irritation and a considerable inflammation of the 

 bladder. When these passages therefore are affected with in- 

 flammation, we ought not to risk the additional irritation." 



CCCCXXXII. Of the visceral inflammations, there remains 

 to be considered the inflammation of the uterus : but I omit it 

 here, because the consideration of it cannot be separated from 

 that of the diseases of child-bearing women. 



" To distinguish this inflammation is sometimes difficult : 

 It frequently lays the foundation of child-bed fever ; but these 

 fevers are not constantly of the inflammatory kind, they are often 

 nervous, and perhaps miliary, neither of which admit of vene- 

 n ; and nothing but necessity will prescribe venesection for 

 lying-in-women, when we consider the evacuation which they 

 have already suffered. If the pain, however, depends on an 

 inflammatory affection of the uterus, only venesection affords 



