e 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.

De Haen affirms the cure of bronchocele to be effected by flowers of zinc,
calcined egg-shells, and scarlet cloth burnt together in a close crucible,
which was tried with success, as he assured me, by a late lamented
physician, my friend, Dr. Small of Birmingham; who to the cultivation of
modern sciences added the in