IPECACUANHA. 15 



tions : " Although the following table of symptoms is not 

 complete, it suffices to prove that this powerful plant was not 

 created solely as an emetic, but that it serves much higher and 

 more important purposes. It was originally brought into 

 Europe as a remedy for autumnal dysenteries. A hundred and 

 thirty years since, Leibnitz recommended it in those affections* 

 and it was improperly used, according to the fallacious notion 

 that because it will cure certain cases of diarrhoea, it is there- 

 fore adapted to dysentery, although these diseases are widely 

 opposite to each other. 



w However, this usage has somewhat declined, experience 

 having so repeatedly shown that it is wholly unsuited to dysen- 

 tery. The multitude of unfortunate attempts which have cost 

 so many lives, might have been avoided by studying the pure 

 and peculiar effects of Ipecacuanha; what morbid conditions it 

 has the power of inducing in persons in health, and, by analogy, 

 what cases it is able to cure. It would then have appeared 

 that it is only of use in diminishing the excess of blood and 

 some kinds of abdominal pains, but does not affect the other 

 symptoms. 



" On the other hand, the study of Ipecacuanha shows that, 

 as it cures the disposition to vomiting analogous to that which 

 it excites, it has also a specific efficacy, principally in hemor- 

 rhages, in spasmodic asthma that comes on in paroxysms, in 

 suffocating spasms, and in some kinds of tetanus, always sup- 

 posing that the other symptoms of disease coincide with it. 

 Ipecacuanha is also the proper remedy for certain kinds of 

 intermittent fevers, provided it has greater homoeopathic affinity 

 with them than any other medicine. If it is not perfectly 

 analogous, it usually leaves the fever in a condition in which 

 Arnica, China, Ignatia, or Cocculus should be given. 



" Effects occasioned by giving Arsenic improperly, or by an 

 excess of China, also yield to Ipecacuanha. In all cases in 

 which it is administered homceopathically, it should be in very 

 small doses. Hitherto I have 



