OF THE SCURVY.
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tendency both to excite and aggravate this disease. The same obser-vation holds with regard to neglect of cleanliness ; bad cloathing ; thowant of proper exercise; confined air ; unwholesome food ; or anj>disease which greatly weakens the body, or vitiates the humours.
SYMPTOMS.—This disease may beknown by unusual weariness,heaviness, and difficulty of breathing, especially after motion ; rotten-ness of the gums, which are apt to bleed on the slightest touch ; astinking breath; frequently bleeding at the nose; crackling of thejoints ; difficulty of walking ; sometimes a swelling and sometimes afalling away of the legs, on which there are lived, yellow, or violetcoloured spots; the face is generally of a pale or leaden colour. As thedisease advances, other symptoms come on ; as rottenness of the teeth (haemorrhages or discharges of blood from different parts of the body ;foul obstinate ulcers; pains in various parts, especially about the breast;dry scaly eruptions all over the body, &c. At last a wasting or hecticfever comes on, and the miserable patient is often carried off by a dy-sentery, a diarrhoea, a dropsy, the palsy, fainting fits, or a mortification of some of the bowels.
CURE.—We know no way of curing this disease but by pursuinga plan directly opposite to that which brings it on. It proceeds froma vitiated state of the humours, occasioned by errors in diet, air, orexercise; and this cannot be removed but by a proper attention tothese important articles.
If the patient has been obliged to breathe a cold, damp, or confinedair, he should be removed, as soon as possible, to a dry, open, audmoderately warm one. If there is reason to believe that the diseaseproceeds from a sedentary life or depressing passions, as grief, fear, &c.the patient must take daily as much exercise in the open air as he canbear, and his mind should be diverted by cheerful company and otheramusements. Nothing has a greater tendency either to prevent or re-move this disease than constant cheerfulness and good humour. Butthis, alas ! is seldom the lot of persons afflicted with the scurvy; theyare generally surly, peevish, and morose.
When the scurvy has been brought on by a long use of salted provi-sions, the proper mediciue is a diet consisting chiefly of fresh vegetables;as oranges, apples, lemons, limes, tamarinds, water cresses, scurvy-grassbrook-hme, &c. The use of these with milk, pot-herbs, new bread, andfresh beer or cyder, will seldom fail to remove a scurvy of this kind, iftaken before it be too far advanced ; but to have this effect they mustbe persisted in for a considerable time. When fresh vegetables cannotbe obtained, pickled or preserved ones may be used ; and where thes'-are wanting, recourse must be had to the chemical acids. All the pa-tient's food and drink should in this case be sharpened with cream oftartar, elixir of vitriol, vinegar, or the MURIATIC ACID.
These things however will more certainly prevent than cure the scurvy,for which reason sea-faring people, especially on long voyages, ought tolay in plenty of them. Cabbages, onions, gooseberries, and many othervegetables, may be kept a long time by pickling, preserving, &c.and when these fail, the chemical acids, recommended above, which willkeep for any length of time, may be used. We have reason to believe,if ships were well ventilated, had got stores of fruit';, green*, cyder, fcc.
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