Few Europeans in the tropics escape an attack of boils at one time or another. In some instances crop after crop succeed one another, the individual boils being so numerous that the patient is quite unfitted for work by the attendant pain and fever. In certain years so many members of a community are attacked that the disease may be described as being epidemic. These epidemics, occurring when some particular fruit is in season, are very generally, but probably incorrectly, attributed to the use of the fruit in question. Mangoes, probably erroneously, are frequently held responsible.
Treatment.— Any constitutional irregularity must be treated appropriately. Malaria demands quinine; anæmia and debility, iron and wine; constipation, aperients; diabetes, a suitable diet. I have never seen any good from such vaunted specifics as calcium sulphuret, tar water, or yeast.
Boils ought never, unless in very exceptional circumstances, to be poulticed. Poulticing, although it may relieve the pain of the existing boil, is prone to be followed by more boils in the area sodden by the heat and moisture. Neither should boils be incised or squeezed. The only exception to the rule for not cutting is in the case of boils occurring in the scalp or in the axilla. In the former situation, unless opened early, they are apt, especially in young children, to burrow and cause troublesome abscesses; in the latter situation boils tend to be very indolent and painful, and do not readily spontaneously break through the lax integuments.
In any situation in which the boil is liable to be irritated by pressure or clothing, it is sometimes a good plan to cover the part with a circle of wash-leather spread with soap plaster, and having a small hole cut in its centre corresponding to the apex of the boil. When a boil opens, the discharge must be kept from soiling the adjoining skin, and the patient must be warned against touching the skin elsewhere with pus-soiled fingers. The parts must be frequently cleansed with l-in-1,000 corrosive sublimate lotion, powdered with boric acid and covered with a dry,
