After its removal,
the part may be exposed, or, if very painful, smeared over with fresh
cream or common cerate.
A bread and water poultice, although one of the commonest applications
in use, is rarely well made or properly applied. It thus becomes
injurious rather than useful; adding to the inflammation or irritation
of the part, instead of soothing and allaying it. Nothing, however, is
more simple than the mode of its preparation.
Cut slices of stale bread of sufficient quantity, scald out a bason,
put the bread into it, pour upon it boiling water, cover it over, and
let it stand for ten minutes; next strain the water oft, gently squeeze
the saturated bread in a thin cloth, so that the poultice shall not be
too moist, and then spread it upon a cloth so that it shall be in
thickness half an inch, and of a size large enough to cover the whole
of the inflamed part, and a little more. Apply it just warm enough to
be borne, and cover it well with oiled silk. A poultice thus made, will
act as a local tepid bath to the inflamed part; and the oiled silk
preventing evaporation, it will be found, when taken off, as moist as
the first moment that it was put on.
Sect. VI.--BATHS.
Baths are much resorted to during infancy and childhood, both in
health and in disease.
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