patient can stand it, and
then rest given for two hours, and the fomentation applied for two
hours again, or at least for one, taking care to rub with oil and wrap
up in comfortable flannels between and after the treatment. This may be
done again on the second day. The fomentation may then be given once a
day until the pain is removed.

Be quite sure that no trifling application will succeed with such a
disease as this. It will not do to use less heat than will go through
and through the haunches of the patient; and that amount of heat is not
very small. You must have a good soft blanket if possible, your water
must be boiling hot, and you must have plenty of it.

If the hot treatment causes increase of pain, this indicates that a
stage has arrived in which _cold_ is to be applied instead of heat to
the lower back, to subdue nerve irritation. Before or after this stage,
cold application will do harm, so it is well always to try heat first,
as in the great majority of cases that is what is required. When cold
is applied, the patient _must be warm_, and if necessary the feet and
legs should be fomented.

To keep what is got either by the soothing influence of cold or by the
stimulating power of heat, it is good to rub with hot olive oil, and to
dry this off well in finishing, and also to wear a good broad band of
new flannel round the lower part of the body. This band ought not to be
so tight as to confine the perspiration. _See_ Changing Treatment;
Remedy, Finding a.

Scrofula.--The treatment under Glands, Swollen, should be followed. But
besides, the whole membranous system of the glands must be stimulated.
Daily rubbing briskly over the whole body with the cold-drawn oil of
mustard for a quarter-of-an-hour will have this effect, and even by
itself may cure.

Good, easily digested food must be taken (_see_ Abscess; Assimilation;
Diet; Nourishment), and overwork avoided. Continued work, as with a
child at school, may quite prevent a cure, while if the work ceases,
the cure will be rapid. It is better to have health and holidays than
sickness and school. Where there is a family tendency to scrofula, care
should be taken to treat promptly any case of glandular swelling.

Scurvy.--Is a disease springing from disordered digestion, and caused
sometimes by partial starvation, but more frequently by a deficiency of
vegetable acid in the food. It often manifests itself in skin
eruptions, the skin peeling off in scales