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160

MILIARY FEVER.

clothes. Above all, the mind is to be kept easy and cheerful.Nothing so certainly makes an eruption go in as fear, or theapprehension of danger.

The .food must be weak chicken broth with bread, panado,sago, or groat gruel, &c, to a gill of which may be added aspoonful or two of wine, as the patient's strength requires,with a few grains of salt and a 'little sugar.

Good apples roasted or boiled, with other ripe fruits of anopening, cooling nature, may be eaten.

The drink must be suited to the state of the patient'sstrength and spirits. If these be pretty high, the drink oughtto be weak ; as water-gruel, balm tea, or the following decoc-tion : Take two ounces of the shavings of hartshorn, and thesame quantity of sarsaparilla, boil them in two English quartsof water. To the strained decoction add a little white sugar,and let the patient take it for his ordinary drink.

When the patient's spirits are low, and the eruption _ doesnot rise sufficiently, his drink must be a little more generous ;as wine whey, or small negas, sharpened with the juice oforange or lemon, and made stronger or weaker as circum-stances may require.

Sometimes the miliary fever approaches towards a putridnature, in which case the patient's strength must be supportedwith generous cordials, joined with acids ; and if the degreeof putrescency be great, the Peruvian hark must be adminis-tered. If the head be much affected, the belly must be keptopen by emollient clysters.

Medicine. — If the food and drink be properly regulated,there will be little occasion for medicine in this disease.Should the eruption however not rise, or the spirits flag,it will not only be necessary to support the patient with cor-dials, but likewise to apply blisters. The most proper cordial inthis case is good wine, which may either be taken in the pa-tient's food or drink ; and if there be any signs of putrescence,which frequently happens, the bark and acids may be mixedwith wine, as directed in the putrid fever.

Some recommend blisters through the whole course of thisdisease ; and where nature flags, and the eruption comes andgoes, it may be necessary to keep up a stimulus, by a continu-al succession of small blisters ; but we would not recommendabove one at a time. If however the pulse should sink re-markably, the pustules fall in, and the head be affected, it wiD