DISEASES OF ADULT LIFE. 319 
slippery elm is the best suited, but one of the others may 
agree better; try them till you get the right one. If the 
ulcer is indolent, 7.¢., not apparently getting better or worse, 
sprinkle a little blood-root powder over it before you put on 
the poultice or ointment; use the ointment of sanicle (see 
index), if that fails try the others. It need only be said that 
there are many remedies and treatments for this form of 
trouble ; sometimes the one will cure and sometimes the 
other. We saw a fine cure made of a very bad leg by the 
following simple remedy:—When you boil your potatoes 
(without salt), pour the water upon foxglove leaves, at the 
rate of an ounce to the pint, cover, and let it stand till 
sufficiently cool, keep the leg straight, the foot resting on 
something, and the liquor under the sore part; bathe for 15 
minutes, wet a cloth, cover well, and renew when dry. An 
American doctor says he can cure these troublesome ulcers by 
the following treatment :—Get a piece of fine sponge, cut it 
the shape of the ulcer, about the thickness of a penny, squeeze 
it out of carbolic acid,* fit it into the sore, cover it over with 
strips of adhesive plaster, and bandage the leg from the toes 
up to the knee; look well to the general health, take one or 
two of the compound carbon pills after meals, with a 
Thompsonian course and a combination of alterative herbs. 
Ifthe sanicle ointment does not benefit, try the healing, or one 
made of vaseline and extract of stramonium, one ounce of the 
former with half a drachm of the latter. Patience and 
perseverance, if all things are equal, will conquer. 
BOILS, 
«Are well known, but poorly appreciated. There is an idea 
that the cause is richness in the blood. If this were true then 
poverty of the life element would be preferable. As far as 
observation goes it seems they come on people with rich blood 
as well as those with poor. The most reasonable conclusion as 
ee ee 
* Squeeze the sponge out with a knife, and take out the excess by 
pressing between a cloth, as it may injure the fingers. 
