GLEETS.

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these causes it proceeds. When the discharge proves veryobstinate, and receives little or no check from astringentremedies, there is ground to suspect that it is owing to ulcers ;hut if the drain is inconstant, and is chiefly observable whenthe patient is stimulated by venereal ideas or upon strainingto go to stool, we may reasonably conclude that it is chieflyowing to relaxation.

In the cure of a gleet proceeding from relaxation, the prin-cipal design is to brace, and restore a proper degree of tensionto the debilitated and relaxed vessels. For this purpose,besides the medicines recommended in the last stage of thegonorrhoea, the patient may have recourse to stronger andmore powerful astringents, as the Peruvian bark,* alum, vit-riol, galls, tormentil, bistort, balaustines, &c.

While the patient is taking these medicines, the cure maybe promoted by astringent injections, such as are recom-mended in the last stage of the gonorrhoea, to which a fewgrains of alum or white vitriol may occasionally be added.

The last remedy which we shall mention in this case is thecold bath, than which th«re is not perhaps a more powerfulbracer in the whole compass of medicine. It ought never tobe omitted in this species of gleet, unless there be somethingin the constitution of the patient which renders the use of itunsafe. The chief objections to the use of the cold bath area full habit and an unsound state of the viscera. The dangerfrom the former may always be lessened, if not removed, bybleeding ; but the latter is an insurmountable obstacle, as thepressure of the water and the sudden contraction of the exter-nal vessels, by throwing the blood with too much force uponthe internal parts, are apt to occasion ruptures of the vessels,or a flux of humors upon the diseased organs. But whereno objection of this kind prevails, the patient ought to plungeover' head in water every morning, fasting, for three or fourweeks together. He should not however stay in abo^e threeor four minutes, and should take care to have his skin driedas soon as he comes out.

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* The Peruvian bark may be combined with other astringents andprepared in the following manner :

Take of Peruvian bark bruised six drams, of fresh galls bruisedtwo drams ; boil them in a pound and a half of water to a pound ; tothe strained liquor add three ounces of the simple tincture of ihe bark.A small tea-cupful of this may be taken three times a day, adding toeach cup fifteen or twenty drops of the acid elixir of vitriol.

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