454 PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



upon original conformation, the cure must be difficult, and per- 

 haps impossible ; but it may perhaps be moderated by the use 

 of antispasmodics. Upon this footing, various remedies of that 

 kind have been commonly employed, and particularly the fetid 

 gums ; but we have not found them of any considerable efficacy, 

 and have observed them to be sometimes hurtful by their heat- 

 ing too much. Some other antispasmodics which might be 

 supposed powerful, such as musk, have not been properly tried. 

 The vitriolic ether has been found to give relief, but its effects 

 are not lasting. 



MCCCXCVII. As in other spasmodic affections, so in 

 this, the most certain and powerful antispasmoclic is opium. I 

 have often found it effectual, and generally safe ; and, if there 

 have arisen doubts with respect to its safety, I believe they 

 have arisen from not distinguishing between certain plethoric 

 and inflammatory cases of dyspnoea, improperly named Asthma, 

 and the genuine spasmodic asthma we treat of here. 



" Even when the disease is of the catarrhal kind, if it be fit 

 to employ opium to relieve the catarrh, it may likewise be em- 

 ployed to relieve the asthma depending upon it. But I must 

 conclude by remarking, that in both the spasmodic and the 

 catarrhal asthma, I have frequently employed opium in moder- 

 ating the disease, but have never found it to prove an entire 

 cure of it. M.M. 



MCCCXCVIII. As in many cases this disease depends 

 upon a predisposition which cannot be corrected by our art, so 

 in such cases the patient can only escape the disease by avoid- 

 ing the occasional or exciting causes, which I have endeavoured 

 to point out above. It is, however, difficult to give any gen- 

 eral rules here, as different asthmatics have their different idio- 

 syncrasies with respect to externals. Thus, one asthmatic finds 

 himself easiest living in the midst of a great city, while another 

 cannot breathe but in the free air of the country. In the latter 

 case, however, most asthmatics bear the air of a low ground, if 

 tolerably free and dry, better than that of the mountain. 



MCCCXCIX. In diet, also, there is some difference to be 

 made with respect to different asthmatics. None of them bear 

 a large or full meal, or any food that is of slow and difficult so- 

 lution in the stomach ; but many of them bear animal food of 



