fomentation

noun

1. The act of fomenting; the application of warm, soft, medicinal substances, as for the purpose of easing pain by relaxing the skin, or of discussing (dispersing) tumours.

   “Twenty leeches were ordered to be applied round the nose every two days; frequent emollient fomentations; the local vapour bath; general bathing; stimulating pedilavia; a strict regimen; vegetables, milk, white meats; demulcent or acidulated drinks; avoidance of exposure to the sun or to cold air; flannel waistcoat and trousers. This treatment, being strictly observed for two months, caused all the inflammatory symptoms to disappear, […]”

   “We have already spoken of the great utility of hot fomentation to the stomach and bowels, as a means of relieving intense suffering in any internal organ of the body, or in the extremities.”

   “Keeping bhūjra patra or banana leaf above the fourfold cloth is essential. Apart from their attributes to help in this chemical process, they prevent the fall of mercury from the paste through the cloth into the bottom of the pot of dolā yantra. If during fomentation mercury penetrates through the layer of paste then it will remain above the layer of leaf placed over the cloth, thus permitting the intended chemical action to continue.”

2. A lotion or poultice applied to a diseased or injured part of the body.

   “[…] I purged him with our Quintaeſſencia Solutiuo, eight dayes together, that being done I made him a fomentation, that cauſed him to ſweate well, and to ſpitte aboundaunce, […]”

   “If too much milke be the cauſe, then the Nurſe ſhall not give the childe ſucke ſo often, nor in ſuch plenty: If it proceed from wind, and that doe cauſe the childe to be thus troubled, it ſhall be diſcuſſed with Fomentations applied to the belly and navell; and with Carminative Cliſters, which ſhall bee given him, […]”

   “I then applied a Fomentation to the Part, which highly anſwered the Intention; and after three or four Times dreſſing, the Wound began to diſcharge a thick Pus or Matter, […]”

   “The abscess may be hastened to a head by hot fomentations or poultices. It is then ready to be opened and drained.”

   “Dennis, feeling the raised weal, had guessed it for what it was. In spite of their blindness, he and Mary had somehow contrived to apply hot fomentations, she heating the kettle while he put on a tourniquet and did his best to suck out the poison.”

3. Encouragement; excitation; instigation.

   “[T]he Catholick King complained very much thereof, upbraiding the moſt Chriſtian King how ill this did correſpond to the ſo many aſſiſtances which were given by Spain to France ſince that from thence ſo great a fomentation was now preparing to his Rebels in Flanders.”

   “[I]n remote situations, physical and moral phenomena being divested of adventitious attractions, and presented to the mind in their true colours and real relations, are likely to attract its energies in proportion to their importance: at least, in this medium, many objects almost invisible in a more luminous and diversified scene, are seen so large, as compleatly to conceal some of these which with a little fomentation excite the most ardent popular attention— […]”

   “In the popular imagination, and not only there, the progressive and beneficial side of the oil industry […] has been tied in inextricably with a darker side which has featured massive corruption, the fomentation of political upheavals within particular countries and the concentration of power on an international scale in a way which has led to large-scale but unpredictable shifts in the structure of the world oil system.”