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The new domestic Medicine : or, a Treatise on the Prevention and Cure of Diseases, by Regimen and simple Medicines ; with an Appendix containing a Dispensatory for the Use of Private Practitioners
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253

OF A COMMON COUGH.

The cure of this cough depends chiefly upon clean-sing and strengthening the stomach; for which purposegentle vomits and bitter purgatives are most proper.Thus, after a vomit or two, the sacred tincture, as itis called, may be taken for a considerable time, in thedose of one or two table-spoonfuls twice a day, or asoften as it is found necessary, to keep the body gentlyopen. People may make this tincture themselves, byinfusing one ounce of hiera picra * in an English pintof white wine, letting it stand a few days, and thenstraining it off.

In coughs, which proceed from a debility of thestomach, the Peruvian bark is likewise of consider-able service. It may either be chewed, taken inpowder, or made into a tincture along with otherstomachic bitters.

A nervous cough can only be removed by change ofair, and proper exercise; to which may be added theuse of gentle opiates. Instead of the saponaceous pill,the paregoric elixir,&c.which are only opium disguised,ten, fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five drops of liquidlaudanum, more or less, as circumstances require, maybe taken at bed-time, or' when the cough is most trou-blesome. Immersing the feet and hands in warm waterwill often appease the violence of a nervous cough.

When a cough is only the symptom of some othermalady, it is in vain to attempt to remove it withoutfirst curing the disease from which it proceeds. Thus,when a cough is occasioned by teething, keeping thebody open, scarifying the gums, or whatever facilitatesthe cutting of the teeth, likewise appeases the cough.In like manner, when worms occasion a cough, suchmedicines as remove these vermin will generally curethe cough; as bitter purgatives, oily clysters, and suchlike.

Women, during the last months of pregnancy, areoften greatly afflicted with a cough, which is generallyrelieved by bleeding, and keeping the body gently

« See Appendix, Hiera picra.

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