AND ITS RELATIONS TO THE LIVING ORGANISM. 291 



itself fully; and that its premature repression induces a return of the 

 severer constitutional affection. So in Syphilis and Cancer (as Mr. Paget 

 remarks), the severest defects or disturbances in the whole economy may 

 coexist with the smallest amounts of specific local disease ; and it has been 

 laid down as a general law by Dr. Robert Williams, "that when a morbid 

 poison acts with its greatest intensity, and produces its severest forms of 

 disease, fewer traces of organic alterations of structure will be found, than 

 when the disease has been of a milder character." 1 



229. In nearly all the Toxic diseases of the zymotic class, there is a natu- 

 ral tendency to the self-elimination of the poison and of the products of its 

 action on the blood, either by the operation of the ordinary excretory organs, 

 or by the peculiar local actions just adverted to ; and this process takes 

 place in many instances with such regularity, that not only the period which 

 it will altogether require, but each of those successive epochs which mark 

 the stages of development and metamorphosis in the poison and in the prod- 

 ucts of its action, may be almost exactly predicted. There is not, in fact, a 

 more remarkable indication of the "Life of the Blood," than is afforded by its 

 extraordinary power of self-recovery, after having undergone the excessive 

 perversion which is consequent upon the introduction of the more potent 

 Zymotic poisons ; and every philosophical physician is ready to admit-that it is 

 to this " vis medicatrix nature," rather than to any remedial agency which 

 it is in his power to apply, that he must look for the restoration of his patient. 

 The very nature of the action of zymotic poisons upon the blood, seems to 

 forbid the expectation of our being able to neutralize or check that action 

 by antidotes ; and the objects of treatment wholly lie, therefore, in promo- 

 ting the elimination of the morbific matters thus engendered, in keeping 

 under any dangerous excess of local action, and in supporting the system 

 during the continuance of the malady. In a large proportion of zymotic 

 diseases, it is probable that the oxidation of the morbific matter by the aera- 

 tion of the blood, is the chief means of its removal ; 2 and it is accordant 

 with this view, that the encouragement of the respiratory function, both pul- 

 monary and cutaneous, by a pure and cool atmosphere, and by. keeping the 

 skin moist (either by the administration of diaphoretic medicines, or by ex- 

 ternal applications), should be found one of the most efficient means of pro- 

 moting recovery. 3 Whilst mild purgatives may be employed with advan- 

 tage for the same end, in the earlier stages of these diseases, care must be 

 taken that the system be not too much debilitated by their action ; and the 

 same caution must be observed with regard to the use of local depletion or 

 counter-irritation, for the purpose of subduing the violence of some local 

 affection. In fact, the general tendency of these diseases to the adynamic 

 type seems to indicate that, however beneficial the immediate results of re- 

 - . 



1 Elements of Medicine, vol. i, p. 12. 



2 A practical application of the doctrine laid down, has recently been made by Drs. 

 Fayrer and Brunton, who have recommended the maintenance of artificial respira- 

 tion in the treatment of snakebite, and there seems to be no reason why the subcu- 

 taneous or intravenous injection of Ammonia, advocated by Prof. Hal ford of Mi'l- 

 bourne as an agent neutralizing the poison, should not be conjoined with it. See 

 Fayrer and Brunton (op. cit.). Halford, Australian Med. Gaz , and Pamphlets, 

 1870-74. 



3 Dr. Daniell, whose long familiarity with the most pernicious forms of African 

 fever, and with the various modes of treatment which have been put in practice for 

 its cure, gives a most decided preference to the sudorific system in vogue among the 

 natives, as having a vast superiority over the venesections, saline purgatives, and 

 large doses of calomel, which most European practitioners have employed. See his 

 Sketches of the Medical Topography and Native Diseases of the Gulf of Guinea, p. 

 120. 



