Tinned Food (Poisoning). Food poisoning has been considered elsewhere, and it will be sufficient to say here that there are two main varieties of tinned food poisoning.

In the first place, the poison may be produced by decomposition of meat, fish, or other food placed in an improperly sealed tin, when air has been admitted, and bacterial decomposition has therefore started. The result is ptomaine poisoning, which see. The second variety is due to the action of the acid of the fruit on the tin. The symptoms are caused by the poisonous effects of mallate of tin from the combination of the malic acid in the juice with the mineral.

The symptoms are sickness, vomiting, and a metallic taste in the mouth, pain in the stomach, diarrhoea, and collapse. An emetic should be given, alternated with tumblers of tepid water so as to wash the stomach out. Then barley water and milk or eggs may be administered to soothe the lining of the digestive canal. Any collapse must be treated by stimulants, such as brandy.

Thrombosis is the clotting of blood in a vein with or without inflammation of the vein wall (phlebitis). It occurs most frequently in the leg, and occasionally in the arm. A common example is "white leg," which is apt to come on after childbirth owing to the condition of the blood and the previous pressure. The best treatment for this is complete rest, warmth to the limb, and iron tonics.

When thrombosis occurs apart from this condition, it may be due to injury or to inflammation in the vein wall. It is important to keep a patient suffering from thrombosis at absolute rest. The limb should be swathed in cotton-wool to maintain warmth, until the circulation gets re-established.

Thrush is an inflammatory affection of the mouth which occurs in infancy. White patches are found over the lips, tongue, and gums which are small moulds due to the growth of a fungus. It is most commonly found amongst children who are improperly fed and living under unhygienic conditions, but it may occur in adults during the course of a debilitating illness. It must be treated by alteration of the diet and improved hygiene. The patches are treated by wiping the mouth out daily with clean cottonwool dipped in glycerine and borax in the strength of a teaspoonful of borax to a wine-glassful of glycerine. Fresh cotton-wool should be used each time, and the pieces should be burned as the condition is contagious.

Toe-Nail (Ingrowing). Ingrowing toe-nail is generally met with in the big toe, and is caused by wearing tight boots which exert pressure, and by improper cutting of the nails. When the nails are cut square across, tight boots press the corner of the nail to one side, and inflammation results.

Treatment consists in wearing square-toed boots, and keeping the nails carefully trimmed. A piece of lint should be placed between the ingrowing nail and the overgrowing portion of skin, to prevent pressure. In bad cases, a small operation will have to be performed, by which a strip of nail and the overgrowth of skin is removed.

Tonsilitis is an inflammation of the tonsils, which may be acute or chronic. Acute tonsilitis comes on fairly suddenly with pain, swelling, and difficulty of swallowing. The temperature is probably 102 or 103 degrees, and one tonsil is more affected than the other, causing tenderness and stiffness behind the angle of the jaw. When the throat is examined, the tonsils are seen to be enlarged, and may show yellow points of ulceration. As the inflammation subsides in one tonsil, it increases in the other, causing stiffness in the jaw of the same side, due to enlargement of the glands in that part.

Quinsy An acute tonsilitis in which the condition goes on to the formation of an abscess from suppuration of the tonsil, when the symptoms are the same as in simple tonsilitis, but more accentuated.

Chronic Tonsilitis

A chronic enlargement of the tonsils often seen in people who have suffered from several attacks of acute tonsilitis. It is also common in children suffering from adenoids, when the tonsils can be seen to be enlarged, and often red on either side of the throat. Chronic tonsilitis renders people liable to acute attacks and to continual colds in the head.

Acute Tonsilitis

In cases of acute tonsilitis the patient should be put to bed and given a dose of salt. The throat should be treated with gargles, such as a small half teaspoonful of powdered alum in a tumblerful of warm water, or carbolic gargles (1 in 100). Inhalations of medicated steam (eucalyptus or friars' balsam) are also useful. Liquid diet should, of course, be given, consisting chiefly of milk, gruel, liquid arrowroot, and beef-tea and broths. The patient should be kept warm and protected from chill. In chronic tonsilitis, such tonics as cod-liver oil, iron, and quinine are needed. The throat should be painted as directed by the doctor. Anyone subject to sore throats of this sort should guard against damp and chill, take easily digested food, and keep the general health up in every possible way.

Toothache is pain due to decay of the teeth or other morbid condition of the jaws and teeth. Pressure, for example, may be exerted by malposition of the teeth or overcrowding, by tumours of the jaws, or the difficult eruption of wisdom teeth. In most cases, the tooth is undergoing decay. The enamel and underlying tissues become affected by microbic invasion, and, once inflammation has penetrated to the pulp in the centre where the nerve lies, pain is inevitable. A tooth affected in this way must be either stopped or extracted. Dentistry is very preservative nowadays, and the tooth should be saved, wherever possible. After several teeth are lost, the outline of the jaw becomes altered, unless these are replaced by artificial teeth. And, unless this is done, the food cannot be properly chewed.

To ease the pain of toothache, any cavity should be filled with a plug of cotton-wool squeezed out of creosote or carbolic acid. Washing out the mouth with warm carbolic lotion (1 in 100) will also relieve the pain. This lotion acts as an antiseptic as well as an anodyne for the pain.

(Warning. -The strength of the solution must on no account be above that mentioned.)