DISEASES OF ADULT LIFE. 371 
the putrid carcass of a cat. This gave him an acute jaundice. 
The cure of this trouble is not difficult, unless it be the result 
of liver disease, when it is only cured by treating the liver. 
(For treatment, see inflammation of liver) Simple jaundice is 
cured by the following treatment: For half an hour foment 
over the liver with flannels wrung out of a strong alkaline 
solution, four ounces of carbonate of soda or soda crystals to a 
quart of boiling water ; after this put on a poultice of linseed or 
oatmeal, made with the alkaline solution. Take a decoction 
of barberry bark or fringe tree bark, one ounce to the pint, a 
wineglassful four times a day, and keep the bowels lax with 
the bilious powder or liver pills An American doctor, 
speaking of the virtues of the fringe tree (or chionanthus virg.), 
tells of a hotel-keeper who sat outside his place looking more 
yellow than a Chinaman. The doctor asked him why he did 
not get his trouble cured He said, ‘tI wish I knew how.” 
He told him to come round to his office. He came and got 
the medicine. The doctor says in two days he began to bleach 
out splendidly. Lobelia inflata, which, (see index), is another 
cure Altogether there is a number of remedies. We only 
wish every other liver trouble was as easily cured as jaundice. 
CONSTIPATION. 
This habit may be more or less constitutional, or as it is 
very often symptomatic of other troubles. It is caused 
directly by a loss of muscular activity of the intestines, which 
in good health have what is termed a peristaltic action, a worm- 
like downward motion. The liver also is usually implicated 
and sluggish. There is no need to speak of symptoms, as 
there are few who have not experienced the difficulty of 
evacuating the bowels in consequence of the hard impacted 
feces. Treatment: We wish to impress upon the minds of 
readers, those who suffer, the necessity of studying their diet 
and endeavouring to remedy the evil by it, instead of the 
various nostrums sold everywhere in the shape of pills, 
mixtures, &c., which often increase the difficulty. We have 
known of persons who could take 12 Holloway’s pills at 
