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Domestic Medicine : or, a Treatise on the Prevention and Cure of Diseases by Regimen and simple Medicines
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INFLAMMATION OF THE KIDNEYS.

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other diluting liquors. Nothing so safely mid certainly abates theinflammation, and expels the obstructing cause, as copious dilu-tion. The patient must be kept easy, quiet, and free from cold,as long as any symptoms of inflammation remain.

MEDICINE.------Bleeding is generally necessary, especially at

the beginning. Ten or twelve ounces may be let from the arm orfoot with a lancet, and if the pain and inflammation continue, theoperation may be repeated in twenty-four hours, especially if thepatient be of a full habk. Leeches may likewise be applied to thehemorrhoidal veins, as a discharge from these will greatly relievethe patient.

Cloths dipped in warm water, or bladders filled with it mustbe applied as near as possible to the part affected, and renewed asthey grow cool. If the bladders be filled with a decoction of mallows and camomile flowers, to which a little saffron is added, andmixed with about a third part of new milk, it will be still morebeneficial. The patient should be supplied freely with demulcentdrinks, as barley-water, with the addition of gum arabic.

Emollient clysters ought frequently to be administered; and ifthese do not open the body, a little salt and honey or manna maybe added to them.

The same course is to be followed where gravel or stone is lodgedin the kidney; but when gravel or stone is separated from theKidney, and lodges in the ureter, it will be proper, besides thefomentations, to rub the small of the back with sweet oil, and togive gentle diuretics; as juniper-water and linseed tea, sweetenedwith the syrup of marsh-mallows; a tea-spoonful of the spirit ofnitrous ether (sweet spirits of nitre), with a few drops of laudanum,may now and then be put in a cup of the patient's drink. Heought likewise to take exercise on horseback, or in a carriage, ifhe be able to bear it.

The ureters are two long and small canals, one on each side,which carry the urine from the basin of the kidneys to the bladder.They are sometimes obstructed by small pieces of gravel fallingdown from the kidneys, and lodging in them.

When the disease is protracted beyond the seventh or eighthday, and the patient complains of a stupor and heaviness of thepart, has frequent returns of chilness, shivering, &c. there isreason to suspect that matter is forming in the kidney, and thatan abscess will ensue, for the kidney is subject to inflammation andgangrene.

When matter in the urine shews that an ulcer is alreadyformed in the kidney, the patient must be careful to abstain from<ill acrid, sour, and salted provisions; and to live chiefly uponmild mucilaginous herbs and fruits, together with the broth ofyoung animals, made with barley, and common pot herbs, &cHis drink may be whey, and butter-milk that is not sour. Thelatter is by some reckoned a specific remedy in ulcers of thekidneys. To answer this character, however, it must be drankfor a considerate thr>e. Chalybeate waters have likewise been