123 [EPE. 
sause they invigorate the nervous system in those 
miserable beings crushed by “a preponderance of 
mental or corporeal infirmity or weakness;”* men- 
tal exhilarating agents, because the celebrated 
Dunning, a barrister of the London bar was fool 
enough to put a blister on his breast when called 
“on great occasions to make the finest display of 
his powers, forensic and parlimentary, and found it 
to elevate his mind.”}!!! Scavengers because they 
ae sweep out of the system acrimony or 
morbific stuff! Herculean co ies5—b: 
; ag on “993 
sending their little acrimonious particles through 
the pores of the skin into the blood, to battle-the- 
watch with the acrimonious particles of morbific 
matters they may meet with there, and to drive them 
vt-et armis out!! or more pacific and seductive, but 
equally efficacious powers, which genteelly knock 
at the door (the skin) and ‘invite,’ ‘solicit, or‘draw? 
to it, the morbid destroyers within, and thus shew 
them the way toclear themselves!!! They have 
been all this—*+ every thing by starts but nothing 
long,”’ and yet they are, in sooth, after all—mere 
blisters. The preceding sketch is a melancholly 
picture of the waste of intellect and study, with- 
out one light, one shadow of true keeping with 
the original design. Nothing resulting to fix the 
mind on a more varied or extended employment of 
these agents. That they are useful, and possess 
important qualities of a curative nature, experi- 
ence has from an early date taught the practitioner. 
How they are so I cannot tell. I might indeed 
beguile you with some new hypothesis, as wise— 
likely to be current as long--as useful practically, 
--and predicated on facts as solitary and insulated 
as some if not all of the preceding. But what 
* Dr. Chapman, Therapeutics, Epispastics. 
t Dr. Chapman, tdid, ibid, 
