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altogether. I am inclined to think, that the alma- 

 nacks, in which fuch advice has been for many 

 ages prepofteroufly inferted, have been the principal 

 caufes of fuch abfurd notions being carried into 

 practice for fo long a courfe of years. I fee it has 

 been of late omitted in fome, and hope the others 

 will follow the example. 



A prejudice fubfifts among many people of the 

 lower ranks, againft every remedy that does not 

 operate upon them in fome fenfible manner as an 

 evacuant. They do not meafure its good effects 

 by the change it produces upon the health, but by 

 its increafing their natural difcharges. This is an 

 unfortunate prepoffefiion, as feveral of the mod ef- 

 fectual remedies act for the moft part without any 

 fenfible alteration in the animal fyftem, fave the 

 ceflation of the diforder. This is the cafe in ge- 

 neral with the Peruvian bark, when given as a cure 

 for the intermittent fever, in which, if medicines of 

 the evacuatory kind were to be joined with the 

 bark, they would, unlefs very gentle in their opera- 

 tion, fruflrate the good effects of the principal re- 

 medy. It is proper on this account, whenever 

 medicines of this kind are given, to forewarn thofe 

 to whom they are adminiftered, that they are .not to 

 expect from them any other effect than an abate- 

 ment 



