DISEASES OF ADULT LIFE. 843 
general health, and take three to four courses of medicine. 
To put a compound galbanum plaster over the stomach is 
recommended by men of experience; it cannot do harm but 
will soothe and protect, at least in some measure. 
INFLAMMATION OF THE LIVER (Hepatitis) 
It is generally supposed that the liver is more subject to 
-disease than the other organs. Some medical men are in the 
habit of putting down to the liver any derangement which 
they cannot fully understand. In Coffin’s Botanic Guide to 
Health he gives an illustration of this in the parting charge of 
an old doctortoone ofhis pupils who was starting outin practice. 
You will meet with many cases, said he, that will perplex you, 
on account of their obscurity. Youcancall them livercomplaint, 
and prescribe mercury; and in treating children the same 
doubtful cases will trouble you. You can call their ailment 
worms, and give them mercury. So it happens that hundreds 
die of supposed liver complaint; yet when post-mortem 
examinations are held, the liver is found to be the most healthy 
organ in the body. Formerly the true cause of most of these 
supposed liver complaints was the mercurial drugging so 
largely practised. Still, hke every part and organ, it may 
become inflamed from the usual causes—cold, intemperance, 
blows over the region, intense heat, high living, &c. 
Symptoms: It commences with a chill, followed by more or 
less of a fever, a pricking pain on right side, which may 
extend up the back to the mght shoulder. When very severe 
there will be difficulty of breathing and pain on coughing, as 
the diaphragm presses on the liver. Sometimes the whites of 
the eyes are tinged with yellow, there is a bitter taste in the 
mouth, the tongue is coated brown or yellow, loss of appetite, 
urine high coloured, depression, &c. 
Treatment: When the tongue is heavily coated, give the 
vapour bath and an emetic, one drachm fluid extract of lobelia 
in a half pint of decoction of dandelion. If the bowels have been 
costive, it will be well to relieve them with an injection of 
‘warm water, into a pint of which put a teaspoonful of tincture 
