The thirty-first edition, revised, of an essay on the nature and cure of scrofulous disorders, commonly called the king's evil : deduced from long observation and practice, with additions, and above sixty cases : the remedies in them used, and occasional remarks, to which is prefixed a plate of the herb vervain, and its root / by the late John Morley.

  • Morley, John, -1776.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The thirty-first edition, revised, of an essay on the nature and cure of scrofulous disorders, commonly called the king's evil : deduced from long observation and practice, with additions, and above sixty cases : the remedies in them used, and occasional remarks, to which is prefixed a plate of the herb vervain, and its root / by the late John Morley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    sometimes white specks on or near the pupil, or sight. They are often forerunners of cataracts, and total blindness, if not timely prevented; they often discharge great quantities of clear, saltish water, of so corrosive a nature that it takes the skin off the cheeks. Often small running ulcers at the inner corners of the eyes, which discharge a whitish, thick matter, which glues up the eyelids in the morning, so that they are opened with difficulty. When these complaints withstand the usual methods of bleeding, blistering behind the ears, cupping, setons, and almost numberless et ceteras, for months together, we may venture to pronounce them scrofulous. What some people fancy to be the St. Antho- ny's fire, is often a species of this disorder; swelling on the knees and elbows, without redness or inflammation, vulgarly called white swellings, so that the bones themselves seem enlarged near the joints, are to be accounted scrofulous. When sores or ulcers have been long near the joints or bones, and will not heal with common applications, it is a shrewd sign the bones are foul and carious; in that case, pieces of bone, sharp, ragged, and seemingly worm- eaten, and little pieces like coarse sand, are seen on the plasters, among the pus, or matter, when taken off. When the gristles, or cartilages on the head of the bones, are consumed, then follows a stiff joint, by the bones growing together. The muscles under the hams and the inside of the elbows, I have often found to have been divided by the knife, by unskilful hands, so that the joint has been rendered useless. I have met with swellings within the throat, the tonsils greatly tumefied and inflamed, threatening a suf- focation, nothing appeared outwardly. This distemper may show itself like a leprosy, with a thick white scurf on the head and else- where. When the disorder falls on the lungs, beware of a gallop- ing consumption, as it is frequently called, and is too olten fatal to young people, by not attending scrupulously to this disorder. After the measles and small-pox, weak eyes and running sores are not unusual, which people seldom think proceed from the evil, though it is too often the ease. A very dry, thick, crusty scab near the elbows and joints, is sometimes seen, which when removed is suc- ceeded by others of the same nature which are difficult to cure, except the constitution be mended. The glands under women's arm-pits frequently swell or tumefy, and their breasts troubled with hard, unequal, painful tumors or'swellings, which have been too often taken for cancers, and the knife ignorantly used to the irre- parable damage of the poor sufferer. Such breasts neglected or wrongly treated often degenerate into real cancers, when every one knows the case is deplorable. Should the bones be foul, the case is bad, though not always to be despaired of. Sometimes the marrow of the bone is touched, or the disease begins in the bone itself, which may be observed when the bones themselves seem