S84 ORD. XXI. Rhoades. PAPAVER SOMNIFERUM. 
the expectoration after the use of opiates always returns with 
“ more advantage than before. The mucus which had issued 
before had been poured out from the follicles in an acrid state; 
but, by being made to stagnate, it becomes milder, and is dis- 
charged in what the ancients called a concocted state, with more 
“ relief to the lungs.’” 
When opium is so managed as to procure sweat, it will tend 
to remove an inflammatory state of the system, and may prove 
generally useful; a notable instance of this we observe in the cure 
of acute rheumatism by means of Dover’s powder. 
_In the small-pox opium, since the time of Sydenham, has been 
very generally and successfully prescribed, especially after the 
fifth day of the disease; but during the first stage of the eruptive 
fever, we are told that it always does harm; an opinion which our 
experience at the Small-pox Hospital warrants us to contradict: 
for even at that period of the disorder we often find the pulse 
languid, and the countenance pale, though pains in the loins and 
head are at the same time very severe; these symptoms, with 
restlessness, and other signs of irritability, which appear for some 
days after the attack of the disease, are considerably relieved by 
opium; to which however we usually add camphor and vinum 
antimonii tartarisati, taking care always to keep the body suf- 
ficiently open by the frequent use of a proper cathartic. 
In hemorrhagic disorders the use of opium is inferred from its 
known effects in restraining all the excretions, except that of 
sweat; but unless the hemorrhages be of the passive kind, or ex- 
cited by irritation, unattended with inflammation, opium may pro- 
duce considerable mischief, and therefore its use in these com- 
plaints requires great circumspection. - 
In dysentery opium, though not to be considered as a remedy, 
may however be occasionally employed to moderate the violence 
of the symptoms. 
In diarrhoea, especially» when the acrimony has been carried off 
» Cullen J, c. 
