156 CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



matory kind, he holds to be inadmissible, except perhaps in a very 

 severe acute form of the disease, where a single bleeding might be 

 employed at the commencement, previously to local depletions. On 

 the contrary, local bleeding is one of the most efficacious remedies 

 that can be employed in such cases : it should not precede the use of 

 other means ; but, when these seem to produce but little benefit, or 

 a mere temporary amendment, then a moderate bleeding from the 

 region of the stomach should be employed. This resource should be 

 adopted when fulness of blood in the mucous coat of that organ is 

 suspected : even in extreme emaciation from long continued illness, 

 two or three or four leeches will sometimes alleviate symptoms which 

 would resist every other application. In acute inflammation, leeches 

 may be applied freely to the number of fifteen or twenty, at each 

 time. When, however, inflammation of the stomach arises during the 

 progress of an affection of the heart or liver, the depletion must be 

 more guardedly used, because the constitution has already been en- 

 feebled or rendered irritable. When there is confirmed chronic in- 

 flammation of the stomach, more advantage will be derived from the 

 daily application of six or eight leeches, than from a larger bleeding. 

 In such cases, the quantity of blood taken at one time, is of extreme 

 importance. Unpleasant nervous symptoms often accompany inflam- 

 matory disorders of the stomach, and a slight inflammation sometimes 

 produces a disturbance in which the nervous symptoms predominate : 

 hence, local depletions, although of vast utility, should be applied 

 with much caution ; for, when large, they are frequently succeeded by 

 an aggravation of the concomitant nervous feelings. Many forms of 

 gastric inflammation are strictly periodical : in others, the disease's 

 prominent features, as pain and distension of the stomach, heat of the 

 skin, and quickened pulse, are only present after meals. It is during 

 these accessions, that local bleedings should be employed : at these 

 periods, it is more useful, both as a palliative and curative remedy, 

 than when resorted to in the intervals of the paroxysms. We have 

 seen invalids giving a lively description of the relief they had ob- 

 tained from treating the parts over the stomach with applications of 

 very hot water, mustard-poultices, warm plasters, and especially of 

 cupping-glasses with or without bleeding. 



Constipation is a prominent and distressing symptom in many 

 forms of stomach-disease : in such cases, although aperients are re- 

 quired and prove of the greatest utility when properly selected, yet 

 they often increase the patient's sufferings, when violent and not 

 guarded with sedatives. Mr. Parker prefers those which consist of 

 blue pill with aloes or rhubarb, combined with galbanum, the extracts 

 of hops, lettuce or henbane, or the salts of morphia. He thinks ca- 

 lomel, with the compound aloetic pill and a sedative, is useful in some 

 cases ; but the mercurial should rarely exceed one grain, for a dose. 

 These remedies, accompanied with solutions of the neutral salts in 

 bitter infusions with hydrocyanic acid, form the best aperients : they 

 operate freely without pain or uneasiness, and generally afford very 



