A poultice is a soft, wet dressing you put on the skin to ease pain or swelling. The old kind was a warm mush — bread, milk, herbs, clay, or grain — spread on a cloth and left on the sore place. The wet, often warm, sitting-there is the point: people hope the swelling calms down. You can also use it as a verb: to poultice a wound or a sprain. You will meet it in older stories, farm talk, and talk about traditional home medicine. In a hospital today a doctor is more likely to speak of a cold pack or a dressing. Though actually it is cousin to today's heat pack, it is not the sticky plaster patch from the chemist, and it is not a dry bandage. At home in the past, someone might poultice a boil, or a horse's leg.

泥敷劑。日常多說熱敷、敷藥；不是藥局買的貼布「膏藥」。