PINUS LARIX. . ORD. I. Conifere. 9 
may be employed in the form of an injection, as the most certain 
laxative in colics, and other cases of obstinate costiveness. When 
turpentine is carried into the blood-vessels, it stimulates the whole 
system; hence its use in chronic rheumatism and paralysis. Tur- 
pentine readily passes off by urine, which it imbues with a peculiar 
odour; also by perspiration, and probably by exhalation from the 
lungs: and to these respective effects are to be ascribed the virtues 
it may possess. in gravelly complaints, scurvy, and pulmonic disor- 
ders. In all these diseases, however, and especially the last, this 
medicine, as well as some of'the gums and balsams of the terebin- 
thinate kind, by acting as stimulants, are often productive of 
mischief, as was first observed by Boerhaave, and since by Fothergill. 
Turpentine has been much used in gleets and fluor albus; its 
efficacy in the former of these disorders Dr. Cullen ascribes to its 
inducing some degree of inflammation of the urethra; in proof of 
which he says, “ I have had some instances, | both of turpentine and 
balsam of copaiva, producing a manifest inflammation in the ur ethra, 
to the degree of occasioning a suppression of urine; but when these 
effects went off, the gleet, which had subsisted for some time before, 
was entirely cured.” 
The essential oil, in which the virtues of turpentine reside, is not 
only preferred for external use as a rubifacient, &c. but also inter- 
nally as a diuretic; and by Pitcairn and Cheyne as a remedy for 
the sciatica; but few stomachs are able to bear it in the doses they 
direct. 
Turpentine, so much used formerly as a digestive 5 pad is 
in modern surgery almost wholly exploded. _ é 
No. 1. c 
