May 22, 1866

From the 1866 Diary of Mary Knox Herrick
Tuesday, May 22, 1866
Bess worse. I had to get up in night. This morn after breakfast I fomented her breast where the pain was. She raises bloody matter. Jim Clark come and staid all night.

*If you had sore muscles in the 1600s, your doctor might have advised you to foment the injury, perhaps with heated lotions or warm wax. Does this sound like an odd prescription? It's less so if you know that foment traces to the Latin verb fovēre, which means "to heat or warm" or "to soothe." The earliest documented English uses of foment appear in medical texts offering advice on how to soothe various aches and pains by the application of moist heat. In time, the idea of applying heat became a metaphor for stimulating or rousing to action. Foment then started being used in political contexts to mean "to stir up" or "to call to action." from Merriam Webster