Part 8

The diet must be light and cool: all solid foods should be omitted for the first four or five days, and in their place asses milk should be taken. Chicken broth and jellies must be the chief nourishment during this period.

After this, as the disorder abates, the strength must be considered; and by degrees the usual diet, such as is here recommended for healthy old men, should be introduced. But this must be done gradually, and with great caution: otherwise, a hidden change, from low to richer diet, will certainly bring on the complaint again; with more and worse inflammation.

CHAP. XV.

Of fluxes.

Aged people bear a too costive habit much better than they do fluxes or purgings: for they are easily weakened; and nothing does it more than these discharges.

The great rule, in all the disorders of aged persons, is to take them in time. A purging will be cured by proper diet, when it is regarded early: otherwise medicines must be called in; and perhaps they will be ineffectual.

The quantity of solid food must in this case be reduced: but it should not be left off wholly. A drink should be made of burnt hartshorn and comfry root, two ounces of each boiled in two quarts of water to three pints, the liquor poured clear off, and drank warm with a little red wine. This should be the common drink.

Rice-milk, with some cinnamon boiled in it, is excellent for breakfast; and rice-pudding best of all things for supper; and this two hours before bed-time. Sea-biscuit should on this occasion be eat instead of bread; and the patient must use more than ordinary exercise, to promote perspiration.

CHAP. XVI.

Of the gravel and stone.

Old persons are very subject to obstructions in the urinary passages; and often the various degrees of the gravel and stone follow. These are disorders difficult of cure but they are easily prevented in most constitutions.

Let those who are subject but to slight complaints of this kind avoid wine; and supply its place by clear malt liquor, of a due strength.

Let the diet be cooling: and in regard to exercise, the great and golden rule is moderation. Violent motion, or rest for a long time together, are equally wrong. Let the patient walk, or ride out every day at the proper hours; and when the weather does not permit that, let him use the same exercise in his chamber.

When the fits come on, let him take manna and oil: this is an easy and effectual medicine. Two ounces of manna should be dissolved in half a pint of water, and six spoonfuls of salad oil added to it. A spoonful of this taken every half hour will stay upon the stomach, asswage the pain, stop the vomitings which usually attend these complaints; and at the same time procure stools: and while it eases the cholicky pains, it will give passage to the stone.

This is the course in the violence of a fit. When it is perceived coming on, an infusion of BURDOCK ROOT slic’d, is the safest, best, and most effectual remedy. Two ounces of the fresh root, with a pint and half of boiling water poured on it, makes this infusion. The liquor is to be strained off as soon as cold: and half a pint, a little warmed again, with a quarter of a pint of milk, and sweetened with honey, is to be taken every four hours.

This is the medicine lately published also for the gout; and which many are now taking for that disease with very great success. The gout and gravel are nearly ally’d, and it is not strange the same remedy is so effectual also in this case. The wonder is, that a plant of so great virtue, and so common, has been so long neglected by the practisers of physic.

Of the gout it would be vain to treat here. ’Tis a peculiar subject, and requires a larger compass than any single article can be allowed in this work: and it has been considered separately in that treatise.

CHAP. XVII.

Of weakness.

Old men must expect a decay of strength: and it would be as idle to call it a disease, as it were vain to think of remedies. But, besides this which is natural and necessary, weakness is sometimes accidental, and it may then be remedied.

Great evacuations, intense study, violent passions, or a too low diet, will sometimes bring it on before the natural time; and then a proper care and regimen may in a great measure remove it.

A weakness of the pulse, feebleness of the limbs, a paleness of the face, waste of flesh, and low spirits, are the symptoms by which this is known: the remedies are cordial medicines, and a somewhat richer diet.

The medicine I have found most effectual is this: a quarter of an ounce of saffron, a dram of cinnamon, and an ounce of confection of alkermes, put into a quart of white wine: when this has stood two days it should be poured off, and half a wine-glass of it drank once a day.

Rest of mind and body are also in this case very essential articles toward the cure. Let not the patient think he is in danger: let him venture to eat somewhat richer meats, but in a moderate quantity: and indulge in one extraordinary glass of wine at every meal.

Let him rise early: but not go out ’till the air is well warmed by the sun; and the dews are dispersed. If he resides in London at the time, let him immediately go into the country: if he be too loose in his bowels, let him check it moderately by the means we have before directed; and let his malt liquor be strong of the hop.

Between breakfast and dinner let him every day take a yolk of a new laid egg, beat up in a glass of strong white wine. The company of agreeable friends will be the best medicine in an evening: and good broth his fittest supper.

CHAP. XVIII.

Of an asthma.