INFLAMMATION. 
219 
Topical baths, hot fomentations or warm poultices where 
they are practicable, prove of the greatest service. In the 
primitive part of an attack of navicularthritis, podophyllitis or 
fibro-chondritis, hot pediluvia are the sheet anchor so far as the 
local treatment is concerned. 
When the acute inflammation has subsided and there is 
thickening and weakness, the attending physician is warranted 
in proceeding more vigorously—even to vesication. Probably 
the best epispastics are cantharides and mercuric iodide or a 
mixture of the two. 
Under no circumstances use the oil of the croton tiglium, 
for even in the proportion of one to eight of oleum lini, it is 
liable to blemish. Euphorbium also is a dangerous remedy. 
The propriety of counter-irritation in the chest diseases of 
our patients is to be questioned seriously. This was originally 
practiced under the crude impression that two inflammations 
could not exist in the same structure at the same time, so to 
cure the one on a deep-seated and vital organ, you had but to 
start another on the surface—than which there can be no 
greater fallacy. And the application of these irritative drugs 
to the abdomen in enteritis is most absurd. 
If pus is formed, liberate it; if gangrene appears excise it, 
subsequently using the actual cautery. Adhesions of the pleurae 
commonly prove intractable. 
In surgical inflammation, castration the most frequent oper¬ 
ation encountered, may be taken as typical. Aseptic instru¬ 
ments and hands with rigid cleanliness afterwards will ensure 
good results if the surgeon understands his business. The total 
discarding of lard to the parts, or other animal fat, which the 
heat of the patient soon renders rancid (thus inducing further 
inflammation and perhaps peritonitis), will prevent many of the 
unfortunate sequelae of this necessary performance which every 
empiric, however illiterate thinks he fully understands. If it 
became necessary for you to have your finger amputated would 
you wish it to be removed with a clamp, or the actual cautery, 
or even to have the wound sprinkled with such caustics as cor- 
