444 THE HOVSilnOLD. 



nntil tliia is cUscovered and removed, the patient mil always be subject tfl 

 those fits. When a person is seized with a lit the dress should be loosened, 

 fresh air admitted, cold water dashed in the face, and salts or singed 

 feathers applied to the nostrils. If consciousness does not then i-eturn, a 

 draught of sal-volatile and water should bo given, and if the patient be still 

 insensible, the temples and the nape of the neck should be rubbed with 

 brandy. When hysterics can be traced to impaired natui'al action, equal por- 

 tions of pennyroyal and wormwood should be steeped in boiling water, and 

 suffered to simmer by the fire until the virtue of the herbs is extracted. It 

 should then bo allowed to cool, and half a pmt be taken twice or thrice a 

 day, succeeded on each occasion by a compound asafcetida pill, until the 

 desired relief is afforded. 



Colic. — (1) For the violent internal agony termed colic, take a tcaspoon- 

 ful of salt in a iiint of water; drink and go to bed. It is one of the speediest 

 remedies known. It will revive a person who seems almost dead fi-om a 

 heavy fall. 



(2) Phares's method of treating colic consists in inversion — simply in turn- 

 ing tiie patient upside down. Colic of several days' duration has been 

 relieved by this means in a few minutes. 



(3) Dr. Teiiliashin has recommended a thin stream of cold water from a 

 teapot lifted from one to one and a half feet from the abdomen, in cases of 

 colic. He has seen it relieve pain when opium and moi-phia had failed. 



(4) A loaf of bread, hot from the oven, broken in two, and half of it 

 placed upon the bowels, and the other half opposite it upon the bad:, will 

 relieve colic from whatever cause almost immediately. 



The Earliest Sign of Coiisuinptioii. — A quick pulse and a short 

 breath, continuing for weeks together, is the great alarm bell of forming 

 consumption; if these symptoms are attended with a gradual falling off in 

 flesh, in the course of mcnths, there is no rational ground for doubt, 

 although the hack of a cough may never have been heard. Under such cii-- 

 cumstances, there ought not to be an hour's delay in taking competent 

 medical advice.' 



The vast mass of consumptives die, not far from the ages of twenty-five; 

 and this, in connection with another fact, that consumption is several yeara 

 in running its course, suggests one of the most imi)ortant practical couclu- 

 eions yet announced, to wit: 



In the large majority of cases, the seeds of consumption arc sown between 

 the ages of sixteen and twenty-one years, Avhen the steadily excited pulse 

 and the easily accelerated breathing, may readily be detected by an intelli- 

 gent and observant parent, and should be regarded as the knell of death, if 

 not arrested, and yet it is easily, and uniformly done, for the spirometer \\\\\ 

 demonstrate the early danger, and the educated physician will bo at no loss 

 to mark out the remedy. 



The quick pulse and short breath go together; rather " easily put out of 

 breath," is the more common and appropriate expression. 



Sciatica._An English officer, who served with distinction in the war 

 with Napoleon, was once laid up in a small village in France, with a severe 

 attack of sciatica. It so liappened that at that time, a tinman was being 

 employed at the hotel where he lodged, and that this tinman, having been 

 himself a soldier, took an interest in the officer's case, and gave him the 

 cure which iu this instance succeeded immediately and forever, and which 



