xn IxNTRODUCTION. 



than to load the stomach wiili it in large quantities 

 at once." If they thus spoke and acted in the days 

 when remedies were mild, and had but little i^ifluence 

 on the patient ; if they then said — Salvia cum ruta 

 faciunt tibi pociila tiita^ how much more should this 

 golden rule be observed by us, now that the progress 

 of chemistry has unfolded the powers of those 

 simple remedies. 



I have no great opinion of the so-called nostrums ;: 

 but, as we are recommended to " prove all things, 

 and hold fast that which is good," I tried some of 

 them, out of curiosity. The celebrated Morrison's- 

 and also HoUoway's pills, I found, as I expected,, 

 violent purgatives, which may, however, be employed- 

 with advantage (?) by a judicious physician, I need' 

 scarcely observe, that they do not deserve the name 

 oi panacea ; neither can I advise any one, to take 

 either of them in the beginning of a violent fever, 

 having witnessed bad consequences from so doing,. 

 I have administered the above-mentioned pills, in 

 small doses ; also Warburg's fever drops, which are 

 reputed good ; and the reader may find a descrip- 

 tion of their efifects and composition in th« second 

 volume. I was pleased to see in a Report in the 

 Bengal Pharmxcopxia (1844, p. 147) that arsenic in 

 very minute doses, recommended as a diuretic, which 

 is driven oflf with the urine, may be again easily de- 

 tected in it. It is highly probable, that if we were as 

 well acquainted with the re-agents of other medici- 

 nes as we are with those of arsenic, and if we know 

 where to look for their action, i. e.^ whether in 

 the blood-vessels or in the nerves, in the lymphatic 

 system or in the cellular tissue, in the gall or in 

 the bladder, in the spleen, in the liver, in the 



