most useful, that can be employed,
is "Warm Water." Another kind of fomentation is composed of dried
poppyheads, 4 oz. Break them to pieces, empty out the seeds, put them
into 4 pints of water, boil for a quarter of an hour, then strain
through a cloth or sieve, and keep the water for use. Or, chamomile
flowers, hemlock, and many other plants, may be boiled, and the part
fomented with the hot liquor, by means of flannels wetted with the
decoction.

2603. _Cold_, when applied in excess to the body, drives the blood from
the surface to the centre, reduces the pulse, makes the breathing hard
and difficult, produces coma, and, if long continued, death. But when
medicinally used, it excites a reaction on the surface equivalent to a
stimulating effect; as in some cases of fever, when the body has been
sponged with cold water, it excites, by reaction, increased circulation
on the skin. Cold is sometimes used to keep up a repellent action, as,
when local inflammation takes place, a remedy is applied, which, by its
benumbing and astringent effect, causes the blood, or the excess of it
in the part, to recede, and, by contracting the vessels, prevents the
return of any undue quantity, till the affected part recovers its tone.
Such remedies are called _Lotions_, and should, when used, be applied
with the same persistency as the fomentation; for, as the latter should
be renewed as often as the heat passes off, so the former should be
applied as often as the heat from the skin deprives the application of
its cold.

2604. _Poultices_ are only another form of fomentation, though chiefly
used for abscesses. The ingredient best suited for a poultice is that
which retains heat the longest; of these ingredients, the best are
linseed--meal, bran, and bread. Bran sewed into a bag, as it can be
reheated, will be found the cleanest and most useful; especially for
sore throats.

How to Bleed.

2605. In cases of great emergency, such as the strong kind of apoplexy,
and when a surgeon cannot possibly be obtained for some considerable
time, the life of the patient depends almost entirely upon the fact of
his being bled or not. We therefore give instructions how the operation
of bleeding is to be performed, but caution the reader only to attempt
it in cases of the greatest emergency. Place a handkerchief or piece of
tape rather but not too tightly round the arm, about three or four
inches above the elbow. This will cause the veins below to