1827.] Monthly Medical Report. 333 



prodigious influence of the alvine secretion, and the Indispensable necessity of continual 

 uttention-lo it, the reporter would recall the thoughts of the profession to the recorded 

 experience of times long pust, and acknowledging the paramount influence of the stomach, 

 recommend the more frequent adoption of emetics than is usual in the present day. They 

 have i heir use when the stomach is perfectly free from noxious matters, and when the 

 medicine brings up only the warm water by which it was accompanied ; but it is chiefly 

 when the stomach is loaded with sordes, that their good effects are observable. These 

 sot-desare, first, undigested aliment, secondly, bile, and thirdly, the depraved secretions of 

 the stomach itself. It is very necessary that the practitioner should keep in view these 

 different causes from which foulness of the stomach originates, the very different character 

 of symptoms to which each respectively gives birth, and the several kinds and stages of 

 disease, in which they may .occur. Without this knowledge he will never thoroughly 

 appreciate the great variety of cases to which ipecacuanha is applicable. It has been said 

 that the frequent employment of emetics weakens the tone of the stomach, and increases 

 the tendency to dyspepsia. When, however, we look to a differeut element, and observe 

 the small amount of evil which is ever found to result from even long continued sea- 

 sickness, ample reason will be found for distrusting this doctrine. The writer, indeed, has 

 long been convinced, that both in acute and chronic diseases, the value of emetics is at 

 present underrated, and that purgatives are too often exhibited with a view to clear the 

 stomach from offending matters ; an effect, which in very many cases, they are quite 

 incompetent to proJuce. 



Calomel and ipecacuanha have proved of the greatest service in the treatment of the 

 severer kinds of bowel complaints, which have lately been so common ; but the practitioner 

 should be very careful not to push the employment of calomel too far, as the mouth 

 becomes a fleeted rapidly, and to an extreme degree in very cold and dry weather, of which 

 numerous instances are now to be met with in London. The warm bath has proved an 

 useful auxiliary in all the varieties of disease of which mention has been made in this report. 

 Opium has also been highly serviceable, but some delicacy is required in the management of 

 this powerful medicine, whenever fever is present ; and the secretions, inconsequence, both 

 diminished in quantity, and vitiated in quality. 



8, Upper John Street, Golden Square, GEORGE GREGORY, M.D. 



February 22, 1827. 



MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



Ouu letters in reference to the business of the last month, afford nothing of novelty and 

 matter for but a slender report. Christmas found the lands universally, in the finest state 

 which could be produced by a most favourable autumn, and due advantage had been 

 taken by a generally sedulous cultivation. The earliest frost quickly alternating with 

 thaw and poaching the lands, necessarily became an impediment, and put a temporary stay 

 to bean-setting, which had commenced both here and in the North. Th. frost has con- 

 tinued remarkably dry and free from snow, for those considerable falls which occurred 

 were local, and of short duration, yet, nevertheless, sufficient to bury and destroy a 

 considerable number of sheep, in certain mountainous districts, where, according to good 

 old custom, it is deemed an admirable property in those animals to starve well, and to 

 escape in certain proportions, with skin, horns, and bone, through the rigours of winter. 

 This dry winter following a droughty summer, has failed to replenish the exhausted springs, 

 so that there is in some parts yet a cry of the want of water. The present dry, agreeable, 

 and sunny frost, seems a couMterpart to that of 1774, which, according to our recollection, 

 lasted until within a day or two of Lady-day ; and who shall say the similitude may not be 

 completed ? The prevalence of Easterly winds is favourable, since, if the stock should 

 be exhausted, we shall have the less of them in the critical growing months of March arid 

 April; but a Westerly change has occurred this day. The continuance of frost will, in 

 course, retard the Lent seed season, but if otherwise, it will be sufficiently early, the lands 

 being in a fine state of preparation, 



The wheats standing, for the most part, thick upon the soil, may probably have been 

 benefited rather than injured by the frost, the discoloration of the foliage being of no 

 importance. Much manure has been carted upon the land, and much road-work 

 done, from the leisure afforded by the state of- the weather ; in the mean time the 

 -provision of the fold yards is exhausting in a most alarming degree, and many feeders are 

 under serious apprehensions of being at all able to support their stock through this most 

 critical season. Hay and straw where most wanted, are either tuo dear, or cannot be 

 purchased at all. Linseed boiled, and mixed with cut wheat straw, forming a jelly, is 

 successfully given to store cattle at the cost of about sixpence per day each. Store sheep 

 and ewes are doing badly. Pigs are kept at great expence, yet stores are getting con- 

 siderably dearer in some parts. A number of cart horses have died suddenly from intes- 

 tinal obstruction, accompanied by violent inflammatory symptoms ; the cause assigned by a 

 veterinary surgeon, is indigestion, occasioned by feeding wi'.h unthrashed peas and tares. 

 Beans aud Spring tares, fpr seed, rising in price, The anciejat provender for cattle, fvir^e 



