HEALTH.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 12 September 1934, Page 3

HEALTH.

BANISH THOSE BOILS. It is best, from an aesthetic point of view, to treat a boil by some .method which will favour its absorption rather than its rupture. Here are two treatments which you should give a trial, before applying hot fermentations, unless of course, the boil is very inflamed and painful.

Apply continually a mercury and carbolic plaster, or keep smearing over the “head ;; some bland iodine ointment (an alternative method would be to paint repeatedly with tincture of iodine).

Treat your general system at the same time. A boil may bo an indication of a run-down state of health. Take a tonic of iron and arsenic, which a chemist will make up for you. An occasional morning saline is advisable.

The diet should be varied and should contain plenty of green vegetables. A course of raw yeast or one of the rereliable yeast preparations, tablets or extractive, will be helpful. When the boil is large, or very painful, and inflamed and its natural banishment seems out of the question, the best way of bringing it quickly to a head and relieving the painful tension is to apply hot boric, or one in 1000 perchloride of mercury, fomentations every quarter of an hour.

Remember that fomentations are apt to spread infectoin to neighbouring areas and induce fresh crops of boils, unless the skin is mopped freely with methylated spirit after each fermentation. How the boil should break of its own accord, and once the infected matter has been discharged the inflammation will rapidly subside. To promote drainage, after ’t has bust or been surgically interfered with, Apply a dressing of a paste of exsiccated magnesium sulphate, two parts and glycerine one part.

Avoid squeezing boils upon the upper lip and nose; these are dangerous situations —the less you touch them the better, but you should foment them vigorously.