failed, in the cure of
tinea capitis, by the lunar caustic. As I have not hitherto
distinguished these cases from each other; and as I could only offer
conjectures on the subject, I think it best to leave it for future
inquiry.

The same observation applies to some other cutaneous affections which
I need not specify more particularly at the present.

CHAPTER III.

OF SOME CASES IN WHICH THE CAUSTIC IS INAPPLICABLE.

It is by no means my intention to recommend the application of the
lunar caustic as an infallible remedy for all local diseases. I am
quite aware of the propensity, in recommending a favourite remedy, to
extend its use beyond its true limits. The caustic, like all other
remedies, requires to be employed with discrimination; and it is
therefore my object in this little work, to state in which cases it
is, and in which cases it is not, useful and successful.

With this object, I have thought it not improper to add, in a
concluding chapter, some observations on those cases in which I have
found the lunar caustic to be inadmissible. It will, at the same time,
be found that such cases, in the course of their treatment by the
ordinary measures, not unfrequently become fit cases for the
application of the caustic, with the view of more speedily completing
the cure.

This observation is particularly applicable to the cases of burns, of
large ulcers, of fungous ulcers, &c.

The caustic is inapplicable in extensive lacerations, for the same
reason that it is so in extensive ulcers.

I have found the caustic of little use in incised wounds, and should
not employ it except in such wounds received in dissection.

I have failed in my attempts to heal scrofulous sores by the adherent
eschar; I would propose the trial with the lunar caustic and poultice.

In erysipelatous inflammation, where vesicles are formed, the caustic
does injury, as in recent burns.

I have always found that the caustic has done injury in boils,
aggravating rather than diminishing the affection.

1. _Of Burns._

The application of the lunar caustic in recent burns or scalds, has
always appeared to me to increase the inflammation and vesication,
even inducing blisters where there were none before. The caustic must
not, therefore, be applied in these cases, until the inflammation has
entirely subsided; but when there remains only a small superficial
ulceration, the caustic may be passed lightly over the ulcerated
surface to