360 PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



practice, by giving it four or five times a-day to prevent the re- 

 currence of intermittent fevers. M. M. 



3. The various aromatics, whether employed in substance, in 

 tincture, or in their essential oils, are often powerful stimulants, 

 but being more adhesive and inflammatory than those last men- 

 tioned, they are therefore, in all ambiguous cases, less safe. 



4. Some other acrid vegetables have been employed ; but we 

 are not well acquainted with their peculiar virtues, or proper 

 use. 



5. Some resinous substances, as guaiacum, and the terebin- 

 thinate substances, or their essential oils, have been, with some 

 probability, employed ; but they are apt to become inflamma- 

 tory. Decoctions of guaiacum, and some other sudorifics, have 

 been directed to excite sweating by the application of the fumes 

 of burning spirit of wine in the laconicum, and have, in that 

 way, been found useful. 



6. Many of the fetid antispasmodic medicines have been fre- 

 quently employed in palsy ; but I do not perceive in what man- 

 ner they are adapted to the cure of this disease, and I have not 

 observed their good effects in any cases of it. " They have 

 been employed because they are extremely useful in the case of 

 epilepsy and other spasmodic affections ; and we are apt to 

 confound the several cephalic diseases epilepsy with palsy ; 

 thus, we employ valerian in palsy, as we do in epilepsy. But 

 their use in palsy is without any foundation in experience that 

 I have had ; and I would allege that they are rather sedative 

 than stimulant." 



7- Bitters, and the Peruvian bark, have also been employed, 

 but with no propriety or advantage that I can perceive. " They 

 are not powerful in exciting, although they may be useful in 

 supporting, the tone or full and vigorous excitement of the ner- 

 vous system. But I before, on the subject of gout, hinted my 

 doubts with regard to the long-continued use of such medicines, 

 which will indeed destroy the tone of the system, which they 

 were intended to support. 



" The next internal stimulus which I would mention, is Fever. 

 This is recommended by Dr. Boerhaave,and by his commentator, 

 Van Swieten ; and they are not only supported by the evidence 

 of fevers coming accidentally on, but also by theory ; for fever, 



