140 NAT. ORDER. PAPAVERACEiE. 



nardly met with such cases ; and even in the recent state of ca- 

 tarrhs from cokl, I have found the early use of Opium hurtful ; 

 and in cases of pnemonic inflammation, I have always found it to 

 be very much so, if exhibited before the violence of the disease 

 had been moderated by repeated doses of a medicine of a nutral- 

 izing quality. "Wlien that indeed has been done, T have found the 

 Opium very useful in quieting the cough, and I have hardly ever 

 found it hurtful by stopping the expectoration. It may suspend 

 this for some hours ; but if the glands of the bronchia have been 

 duly relaxed by suitable applications, 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 

 tne follicles in an acrid state ; but, by being made to stagnate, it 

 becomes milder, and is discharged 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 may be observed in 

 the cure of acute rheumatism, by means of Dover's powder. 



In the small-pox, Opium, since the time of Sydenham, has 

 been 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 ojoinion which 

 our experience in the treatment of small-pox in this city 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 con- 

 .siderably relieved by Opium ; taking care always to keep the 

 bowels sufficiently open, by a free use of the Podophyllum pel- 

 tatum. 

 . In hcemorrhagic disorders, the use of Opium is inferred from 



