71 [pra. 
diaphoretics used. In perverse and unrelenting 
affections of the skin, diaphoretics are indispen- 
sible. In cholera infantum I cannot but remark, 
there is too much latitude assumed, in the recom- 
mendation of even mechanical diaphoretics, with- 
out designating the two very opposite conditions of 
the skin attendant on this affection. I have had 
my share of experience with this frightful malady. 
I dread it, yet seek it, wherever I can have an op- 
portunity of observing its career, from my fixed _ 
opinion, that it is little understood, comparatively 
with the attention it has elicited and most seri- 
ously claims: and still less happily treated. I 
have, it is true, seen numerous cases in which a 
restoration of the healthy functions of the skin, 
was simultaneous with a happy change in the pa- 
tients danger. But I have also seen innumerable 
cases in which the skin was morbidly open; ra- 
pidly transuding a cold and clammy secretion, 
while in every other symptom, an exact accord- 
ance was observed, with those cases, in which 
constriction, heat, and dryness of the surface pre- 
yailed: and conditions of the skin, intermediate 
between these extremes have not unfrequently 
sented themselves in cases the most alarming 
and fatal. I would not be understood to deter 
you from adventitious means of protecting the skin 
in this disease, from pertinacious morbid action,. 
but simply to guard you against trusting impli- 
citly, or even with confidence. to diaphoretics of 
whatever kind. The intelligence and experience 
of the medical attendant, can alone, afford the 
proper information on this point. Indeed this 
remark is equally applicable to the numerous con- 
tradictory testimonies with reference to the use of 
diaphoretics in some of the affections already spe- 
a is 
