130 THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 



acid will dissolve morphia — one active principle of 

 opium — also, so that a still more valuable prepara- 

 tion for these enlargements we are speaking of is 

 the " oleate of mercury and morphia," when there is 

 heat in the part we wish to apply it to. The 

 morphia should be present in the proportion of two 

 grains to the drachm. Their mode of application is 

 something like the following: Ten to thirty drops 

 or more to be smeared over a part — a thorough-pin 

 for example — night and morning for five or six days, 

 and afterwards every other day until the parts are 

 much reduced. Should there be inflammation in 

 the part, and we are using the " oleate of mercur^^ 

 and morphia" we at once relieve pain and nervous 

 irritability in the part and so arrest the process of 

 inflammation with the morphia, whilst the mercury 

 breaks up, as we have said, the thickened deposits, 

 or, as Mr. Marshall puts it, " the mercury promotes 

 the death and degeneration of the morbid products, 

 and so facilitates their subsequent removal by ab- 

 sorption." Before going any further we must ask 

 for a little patience from the reader, because there 

 will be those who have little or no idea about the 

 meaning of "absorption." We have before said that 

 the blood is the great nourisher of the tissues of the 

 body and that each tissue takes from the blood stream 

 what it needs, and it also restores to the blood stream 

 its old worn out tissue. This being so, the blood, 

 which is everywhere contained in vessels, must quit 

 those vessels — get out of them. This it does not do 



