FEVERS. 629 



purging ought to be avoided, and therefore some vomiting must 

 be admitted, the doses are made larger, and the intervals 

 shorter. 



CLXXXVI. With respect to both kinds of preparations, 

 the repetition is to be made at the times of accession, but not 

 very often : for if the first exhibitions, duly managed, have little 

 effect, it is seldom that the after exhibitions have much ; and it 

 sometimes happens that the repeated vomitings, and especially 

 repeated purgings, do harm by weakening the patient. 



CLXXXVII. The other set of internal medicines (CLII. 

 2.), which I suppose may be useful in taking off the spasm of 

 the extreme vessels, are those named Antispasmodic. How many 

 of these may be properly employed, I am uncertain ; and their 

 mode of operation is involved in great obscurity. It is certain, 

 however, that opium, camphor, musk, and perhaps some others, 

 have been employed in fevers with advantage ; but the circum- 

 stances in which they are especially proper and safe, I find dif- 

 ficult to ascertain, and therefore cannot venture here to lay 

 down any general doctrine concerning them. 



" Here, I say, my doubts and difficulties arise more consider- 

 ably than with respect to any other part of my subject. The 

 operation of the medicines we call Antispasmodics, is by no 

 means yet fully explained. I can, in many cases, observe that 

 the antispasmodics are truly sedative medicines ; in other cases 

 I can observe that they prove antispasmodic by means of a 

 stimulus ; and there are other cases again in which I can apply 

 neither of these views, and, I own, it must be supposed, that 

 there is in some medicines somewhat that we may call specifi- 

 cally antispasmodic, which is owing neither clearly to their seda- 

 tive nor to their stimulant power, or at least to some peculiar 

 combination of these, and that therefore they are truly anti- 

 spasmodic. Our theory upon this subject is somewhat doubtful, 

 and therefore we may be at a loss where to give them a place in 

 this consideration of the remedies of fever ; but it is certain that 

 they are remedies in fever, and several of them are means of re- 

 moving the spasm which takes place in it." 



Opium, as a stimulant to the heart and arteries, may be 

 considered as a principal remedy in fevers, and as such we are 



