EMM. | 100 
EMMENAGOGUES. 
era 
Medicines and agents which excite and promote 
the menstrual evacuation 3 it is supposed they are 
capable of effecting this, when that flux is retained - 
or suppressed. This class is still retained by 
writers on medicaments, notwithstanding the ac- 
knowledged faithlessness of the restorative agency 
of the articles in the disordered function of the ute- 
rus, for removing which they have been supposed 
specifically appropriate. Among those who most de- 
precated the idea of such specific action, was Cullen. 
He has uneqnivocally expressed his doubts of the ex- 
istence, in any medicine then known, of a peculiari- 
ty of action tending to affect that organ in any es- 
pecialmanner. The older writers, however, have 
swelled their books with long lists of articles 
under this appellation. When we advert to the 
variety of causes which have an agency in the 
retention of the meuses at a period of life when they 
ought, in the natural course of physiological 
action, to appear; or, when having. in due time 
made their appearance, have become morbidly 
suppressed ; when we reflect how widely discre- 
pant from any thing like unity, these causes em- 
brace ; and that they are as frequently moral as 
physical and morbid,—we cannot surely, without 
great circumspection and hesitancy, admit that 
Materia] agents of a medical nature, are adequate 
to remove the evil. from whatever source originat- 
ing ; or lessen its prejudicial influence on the gea- 
