Cure for the Croup

             Gleanings from London Papers.
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                 CURE FOR THE CROUP.
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      A prize of 12,000 francs, was offered in 1807, 
by the French government, to that physician
who should produce the best memoir on the
disease called the croup, including also the best 
method for cure.--Eighty-three memoirs were
received; among them two have shared the
prize, being of equal merit, three are distin-
guished as extremely honourable to their au-
thors, and a sixth memoir is marked by the pro-
posal of a remedy that is said by the writer to be
a specific in this malady, and in the whooping-
cough. It is liver of sulphur alcalized, a sul-
phur of potash, recently prepared and brownish.
It is usually given mixed with honey [we have 
known it given with sugar.] The dose, from
the attack of the croup, to the decided diminuti-
on of the disorder, is ten grains morning and
evening, to be diminished as the disorder abates;
and toward the close, the morning dose only to
be given. The mixture of sulphur and honey to
be made at the moment of using. Young chil-
dren will suck it off the end of a finger: but it
may be given in a spoonful of milk, or of syrup, 
thinned with water; or as a bolus: grown chil-
dren take it best in this form. It usually relieves
in two days; but it must be continued until the
cure is completed, and sometimes beyond that
period, for fear or relapses. The lips and the
interior of the mouth are whitened by the liver
of sulphur; and it imparts a warmth to the 
stomach, as it arrives there. The first doses 
most commonly occasion a vomit of a visoid or
concrete matter, to which the sulphur gives a 
greenish tint. Infants at the breast continue 
their customary nourishment. -- The commission
engaged to decree the prize, gave no opinion on
this recipe; but desire it may be tried by the fa-
culty, not only in cases of the croup, but in pul-
monary catarrhs, and other affections of that
[class], for the purpose of obtaining further infor-
mation on its effects.