IljEMORRHAGIES. 297 



but cannot be very safely employed in chlorotic persons. 

 " The late Dr. David Clerk, physician to the Royal Infirmary, 

 tried mercury frequently with advantage in that hospital. I 

 have several times repeated the practice, both in hospital and 

 in private cases, not always, but very frequently, with success. 

 In cases with very great flaccidity of the system and loss of 

 tone, I do not find that I can employ the mercury so long or 

 to such a degree as to restore the tone : for its powers con- 

 sist chiefly in exciting the action of the extreme vessels ; and 

 when the effects of the Emansio have gone on to the length 

 of the hydropic diathesis, it can be seldom employed with 

 safety." " 



One of the most powerful means of exciting the action of the 

 vessels, in every part of the system, is the electrical shock; and 

 it has often been employed with success for exciting the vessels 

 of the uterus. 



MVII. The remedies (Mill. MVI.) now mentioned, are 

 those adapted to the retention of the menses ; and I am next to 

 consider the case of suppression. In entering upon this, I I 

 must observe, that every interruption of the flux, after it has 

 once taken place, is not to be considered as a case of suppression. 

 For the flux, upon its first appearance, is not always imme- 

 diately established in its regular course; and therefore, if an 

 interruption happen soon after the first appearance, or even in 

 the course of the first, or perhaps second year after, it may 

 often be considered as a case of retention, especially when 

 the disease appears with the symptoms peculiar to that state. 



MVI 1 1. Those which may be properly considered as cases 

 of suppression, are such as occur after the flux has been for 

 some time established in its regular course, and in which the 

 interruption cannot be referred to the causes of retention (Mil. 

 Mill.), but must be imputed to some resistance in the extre- 

 mities of the vessels of the uterus. Accordingly, we often find| 

 the suppression induced by cold, fear, and other causes, which '* 

 may produce a constriction of these extreme vessels. Some* 

 physicians have supposed an obstructing lentor of the fluids to 

 occasion the resistance now mentioned : but this is purely hy- 

 pothetical, without any proper evidence of the fact ; and it is, 

 besides, from other considerations, improbable. 



