Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 1, 1802).djvu/158

134] AST feel themselves better in an air replete with gross, effluvia; and breathe with greater ease in a crowded room, where there is a fire and candles. A principal ad- vantage, however, will be derived in this obstinate disorder, from a light and frugal diet, consisting of such animal food only as may be easily digested, and at the same time, avoiding all flatulent and heating substances, as well as liquors ; for instance, wine, milk, turnips, cab- bages, &c. not exposing the body to the influence of hot air, strong smells, offensive vapours, and die likt As a most excellent diet- dritik, we can, from experience, recommend the use of toast and water, in which a few grains of nitre, or sal ammoniac, might be dissolved ; or with the addition of a little pure vinegar. And, if any alterative medicine should become necessary, after the proper evacua- tions, by either bleeding and blis- tering between the shoulders, or, according to circumstances, by gen- tle laxatives, and nauseating doses of ipecacuanha (SeeAppETiTE), we have found the following mixture frequently of great advantage : — Take oxymel of squills, and cinna- mon water, two ounces of each, and pure spring water four ounces ; two table-spoonfuls, each dose, every three or four hours. Astragalus. See Milk Vetch. ASTRINGENTS are those me- dicinal substances which aft upon the simple elementary fibre;, by •contracting them, and increasing the force of cohesion, so as to re- lieve that degree of bodily debility, which depends on their deficient powers of contraction. This want of cohesion, being supposed to arise cuher from an aqueous consistence. AST or a deficiency of animal jelly, in the interstices of the fibres, it ap- pears to follow, that substances af- fording much nourishment, and containing matter for the supply and condensation of that medium between the solids and fluids, in the greatest proportion, are li.-.evise the most effeftual astringents. In- deed, daily experience speaks in favour of this apparently well- founded coniefture. But as man- kind seem, from the earliest ages, to have been dissatisfied widi those simple and congenial substances, which beneficent Nature granted them, even in die most inhospitable regions ; they have, by gradual steps, forsaken her path, and re- sorted to artificial means, which chance or credulity induced them to procure from distant climates. Thus strangely has man, in all civilized countries, suffered himself to be milled by prejudice 5 and, instead of investigating the true- nature and uses of things at home, he went in quest of foreign auxi- liaries, and frequently sacrificed the very life he was anxious to pre?- serve. In order to ascertain, with pre- cision, when astringent rerjoedies may be employed with safety and advantage, we shall reduce the •subject to distinct propositions. I. The cases in which it will become necessary to have recourse to astringents, are : 1. A general, and local, debility, or relaxation of die fibres : the for- mer is relieved by the internal and external use of tonics ; but die lat- ter, chiefly by local applications, such as cold fomentations,. '_' . In a preternatural, and parti- cularly a putrid disposition oi the fluids' 3. The