Anyway, here’s my idea. You can start from the beginning and say you accidentally noticed the sores, ask him if it bothers him much- in fact, ask him a lot of questions and you might be surprised how more relaxed he becomes.
Then tell him you have heard of a remedy- radio talk show maybe- and ask him if wants you to see if he can find the name of it. If he says no.. stop and forget it. If he says yeah, if you could.. Then buy the ointment and give it to him and just tell him you were in the pharmacy the other day and it was convenient to pick the stuff up. Wish him well. If he looks embarrassed, just tell him that you would expect him to do the same.
No need to humiliate him with pity about his financial situation etc. Some people are funny like that.

Human moods are a complex subject – determined by a whole host of factors.

Support from people around can be good, of course, but the real solution is to encourage the person who’s suffering to help themselves.

There’s plenty of ways of doing that.

Acceptance can be a good way of dealing with it. Realising that everyone has ups and downs, and then just accepting how things are. Long-term mindfulness meditation trains this up pretty well – enlightened buddahist masters do experience the sensations associated with depression – it’s just that those sensations do not make them depressed

Another way is encouraging them to be inspired – to find out what it is they would really like to have in their life and then start working towards that. This creates a series of positive emotions and productive actions which alleviate feelings of frustration or defeat.

Anyway… I could talk about this sort of thing all day.

Rich