Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Corns

CORNS, in surgery, are hard excrescences, consisting of indurations of the skin, which arise on the toes, and sometimes on the sides of the feet, where these are much exposed to the pressure of narrow shoes. By degrees, they extend farther down between the muscular fibres on those parts, and occasion extreme pain.

Various remedies have been suggested for the cure of corns, but their removal is always attended with considerable difficulty. A correspondent in the 63d vol. of the Gentleman's Magazine asserts, that after having been afflicted with corns for several years, he was perfectly relieved from them, by the application of brown paper moistened with spittle. It has also been recommended to wrap a clove of garlic in paper, and cover it with hot ashes till it becomes soft, when it should be applied to the parts affected, as warm as they can bear it. But the best cure for these painful excrescences, in our opinion, is to wear constantly easy shoes, to bathe the feet frequently in lukewarm water, in which a little sal ammoniac and pot-ashes have been dissolved, and to apply a plaster made of equal parts of gum galbanum, saffron, and camphor. By persevering in this treatment, the complaint may in a considerable degree be alleviated, and at length totally eradicated. But we cannot omit to caution those who are troubled with corns, never to cut or pierce them with any sharp or pointed instrument; as such imprudent attempts have often been productive of dangerous consequences. Nay, it should be remarked, that every application which is liable to occasion pain to the foot or toes, ought to be carefully guarded against, as being improper and unsafe. Hence the inefficacy of operations performed by pretenders, who are unacquainted with the structure of the human body: and such expedients may be aptly compared to periodical blood-lettings, which benefit the operator, but impoverish the constitution of the biassed patient, whose fluids increase, but progressively become more watery.