I began, therefore, with putting one grain (weight) of gunpowder into the ordinary shilling bottle in which one buys from Messrs. Eppos & Co. ones tinctures, and filling up with rectified Spirits of Wine and well shaking with a bang on the hand with 150 strokes and giving five to ten drops to tablespoonful of water three times a day, and I found it cured boils and eruptions and spots of all sorts with the same ease that larger doses of Gunpowder used to do, and in a much more pleasant manner to the taste. I also found it acted like a magic charm on dyspepsia caused by autointoxication, e.g. while carbuncle is discharging; in eases with vomiting Gunpowder 1x five drops promptly stopped it.
But this did not satisfy me, for the simple reason that the component parts of gunpowder will not dissolve equally in Rectified Spirits of Wine. Therefore you cannot give in equal proportions the three component parts, i.e. you may give more Sulphur or Charcoal or Nitre. Therefore your results cannot be reliable. Therefore I decided to apply to Jas. Epps & Co. for a Trit 1x. I have found this act most excellently, and now I can feel that the cure is from, not 1 or 2 or 3 of the component parts, but from the combination. I generally give a dose of 2 gr. of the Trit.
Now comes the final and local discovery! I find that the pig keepers about here have been accustomed, from time immemorial, to give their pigs one “bacca” pipeful (=a teaspoonful), i.e., the ordinary clay pipeful of black gunpowder when they (the pigs) are what they call “hide-bound.” That is from lying in the wet muck or manure the skin of the pig or the pores of his skin become stopped up. What is the result? Why the skin of the pig turns yellow and dead looking, and the pig instead of growing fat, begins to waste and pine away, and but for the Gunpowder would die.
One pipeful of black gunpowder does the trick. The day after the dose, the skin of the pig begins to get scaly and flaxy, the pig assists the cure by rubbing, and rubs off the scales, when lo! and behold, a new skin, or atleast a clean skin and open pores are discovered, and in a weeks time, takes his “writes” as greedily as ever, and immediately begins to put on flesh!.
It further occurred to me that Hepar sulph. might assist Gunpowder. And the result of my experiments is that Gunpowder will cure, but Gunpowder + Hepar sulph. will cure more quickly. E.g. Gunpowder alone will cure in a fortnight; Black gunpowder + Hepar will cure in a week and Hepar 100 after cure will stop recurrence. I mean in cases of crops of boils, etc. I generally give Hepar sulph. 2x three times a day; Gunpowder 1x three times a week. At the end of the week patients return, not only cured, but you cannot find even where the boils have been, and that too when they have had boils all over their body.
