M. M. Repeated blisters on the part early in the disease are said to cure it by promoting absorption; saturnine solutions externally are recommended. Bark, animal charcoal, as burnt sponge, opium in small doses. Friction with the hand.
20. _Bronchocele._ Swelled throat. An enlargement of the thyroid glands, said to be frequent in mountainous countries, where river water is drank, which has its source from dissolving snows. This idea is a very ancient one, but perhaps not on that account to be the more depended upon, as authors copy one another. Tumidum guttur quis miratur in alpibus, seems to have been a proverb in the time of Juvenal. The inferior people of Derby are much subject to this disease, but whether more so than other populous towns, I can not determine; certain it is, that they chiefly drink the water of the Derwent, which arises in a mountainous country, and is very frequently blackened as it passes through the morasses near its source; and is generally of a darker colour, and attended with a whiter foam, than the Trent, into which it falls; the greater quantity and whiteness of its froth I suppose may be owing to the viscidity communicated to it by the colouring matter. The lower parts of the town of Derby might be easily supplied with spring water from St. Alkmond's well; or the whole of it from the abundant springs near Bowbridge: the water from which might be conveyed to the town in hollow bricks, or clay-pipes, at no very great expence, and might be received into frequent reservoirs with pumps to them; or laid into the houses.
M. M. Twenty grains of burnt sponge with ten of nitre made with mucilage into lozenges, and permitted to dissolve slowly under the tongue twice a day, is asserted to cure in a few months; perhaps other animal charcoal, as candle-snuffs, might do the same.
I have directed in the early state of this disease a mixture of common salt and water to be held in the mouth, particularly under the tongue, for a few minutes, four or six times a day for many weeks, which has sometimes succeeded, the salt and water is then spit out again, or in part swallowed. Externally vinegar of squills has been applied, or a mercurial plaster, or fomentations of acetated ammoniac; or ether. Some empirics have applied caustics on the bronchocele, and sometimes, I have been told, with success; which should certainly be used where there is danger of suffocation from the bulk of it. One case I saw, and one I was well informed of, where the bronchocele was cured by burnt sponge, and a hectic fever supervened with colliquative sweats; but I do not know the final event of either of them.