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Buchan's Domestic Medicine : or the Family Physician ; designed to render the medical Art more generally useful, by showing People what is in their own Power ; both with the Respect to the Prevention and Cure of Diseases ; chiefly calculated to recommend a proper Attention to Regimen, and simple Medicines
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SCURVY.

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if it affects the loins, it should be put in the leg or thigh.Rheumatic persons ought to make choice of a dry warm air,to avoid getting wet as much as possible, and to make frequentuse of the flesh-brush.

CHAPTER XXXIX.OF THE SCURVY.

This disease prevails chiefly in cold northern countries,especially in low damp situations, near large marshes, orgreat quantities of stagnating water. Sedentary people, of adull melancholy disposition, are most subject to it. It provesoften fatal to sailors on long voyages, particularly in shipsthat are not properly ventilated, have many people on board,or where cleanliness is neglected.

Causes. The scurvy is occasioned by cold moist air ; bythe long use of salted or smoke-dried provisions, or of anykind of food that is hard of digestion and affords little nou-rishment. It may also proceed from the suppression of cus-tomary evacuations, as the menses, the hemorrhoidal flux, &c.It is sometimes owing to a hereditary taint, in which case avery small cause will excite the latent disorder. Grief, fear,and other depressing passions, have a great tendency both toexcite and aggravate this disease. It may likewise proceedfrom neglect of cleanliness, bad clothing, the want of properexercise, confined air, unwholesome food, or from any dis-ease which greatly weakens the body or vitiates the humors.

Symptoms. This disease may be known by unusual wea-riness, heaviness, and difficulty of breathing, especially aftermotion ; rottenness of the gums, which are apt to bleed onthe slightest touch ; a stinking breath ; frequent bleeding atthe nose ; crackling of the joints ; difficulty of walking ; some-times a swelling and sometimes a falling away of the legs, onwhich there are livid, yellow, or violet-colored spots ; the faceis generally of a pale or leaden color. As the disease advances,other symptoms come ; as rottenness of the teeth, hemorrhagesor discharges of blood from different parts of the body, foul

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