Emollients are substances which soften, relax, and protect the tissues to which they are applied. They relieve pain and tension by diminishing heat and lessening the pressure on the nerves.

Emollients and demulcents are largely interchangeable terms. The former are applied to the skin; the latter, to mucous membranes.

The principal emollients are:

Glycerin, Soap liniment, Starch, Fats and oils,........

Lard, Olive oil, Almond oil, Spermaceti, Linseed oil, Cacao butter, Petroleum, Paraffin, Petrolatum, Vaseline, etc.

Hot fomentations, Poultices, ..........

Linseed meal, Oatmeal, Bran, Bread, Flour, Figs, etc.

Demulcents are substances which soothe and protect the parts to which they are applied. They are generally of a mucilaginous nature, and are employed for their action upon mucous membranes, while emollients are principally used on the skin. The important demulcents are:

Acacia, Barley, Cetraria, Almond, Flaxseed, Slippery elm, Marshmallow, Licorice, Starch, Tragacanth, Glycerin, White of egg, Sassafras-pith, Isinglass, Honey, Gelatin, Bland oils.

Both emollients and demulcents are exceedingly useful agents to relieve irritation of the skin in certain cutaneous diseases; by softening the skin and mucous membranes they also prevent cracking or chapping from exposure to cold. They are also efficient agents to prevent bedsores and to lessen friction between approximating surfaces, as between the nates and about the groins of children.

Demulcents are employed internally with good results when there is an irritated or inflamed condition of mucous membranes, whether of the respiratory, gastro-intestinal or genito-urinary tracts, as in bronchitis, gastritis, enteritis, diarrhea, dysentery, strangury, cystitis, etc.

Demulcents - such as flaxseed, slippery elm, marshmallow, or sassafras-pith - are very agreeable and efficient agents to quench thirst and to relieve the irritation of mucous surfaces in febrile affections.

Protectives are agents used to mechanically cover and protect injured or diseased surfaces from extraneous influences, as from air, water, etc.

Certain agents classed as protectives are employed for their absorptive power of taking up by capillary attraction any moisture or fluid present.

They are useful agents as protective coatings to bedsores or to excoriated, abraded, or burned surfaces.

The principal protectives are:

Collodion, Solution of gutta-percha, Solution of sodium silicate, Court-plaster (emplastrum ichthyocollae), Lycopodium, Charcoal, Animal charcoal, Purified cotton.

The emollients, demulcents, and protectives which are deemed sufficiently important to merit more consideration than has been given them elsewhere in the present work, will be here considered.