SPASMODIC AFFECTIONS. 489 



fever, and is properly called a Colliquative Diarrhoea ; I have, 

 in such cases, often seen purgatives given with the most bane- 

 ful effects. 



There is still another case of diarrhoea in which purgatives are 

 pernicious ; and that is, when the disease depends, as we have 

 alleged it sometimes may, upon an erythematic inflammation of 

 the intestines. 



I need hardly add, that if there be a case of diarrhoea de- 

 pending upon a laxity of the solids, purgatives cannot there be 

 of any service, and may do much harm. Upon the whole, it 

 will, I think, appear, that the use of purgatives in diarrhoea is 

 very much limited ; and that the promiscuous use of them, which 

 has been so common, is injudicious, and often pernicious. I 

 believe the practice has been chiefly owing to the use of purga- 

 tives in dysenteric cases, in which they are truly useful ; because, 

 contrary to the case of diarrhoea, there is in dysentery a consid- 

 erable constriction of the intestines. 



MDII. Another set of remedies employed in diarrhoea are 

 astringents. There has been some hesitation about the employ- 

 ment of these in recent cases, upon the supposition that they 

 might occasion the retention of an acrid matter that should be 

 thrown out. I cannot, however, well understand or assign the 

 cases in which such caution is necessary ; and I think that the 

 power of astringents is seldom so great as to render their use 

 very dangerous. The only difficulty which has occurred to me, 

 with respect to their use, has been to judge of the circumstances 

 to which they are especially adapted. It appears to me to be 

 only in those where the irritability of the intestines depends up- 

 on a loss of tone ; and this, I think, may occur either from the 

 debility of the whole system, or from causes acting on the intes- 

 tines alone. All violent or long-continued spasmodic and con- 

 vulsive affections of the intestinal canal necessarily induce a 

 debility there : and such causes often take place, from violent 

 irritation, in colic, dysentery, cholera, and diarrhoea. 



MDIII. The last of the remedies of diarrhoea that remain to 

 be mentioned are opiates. The same objections have been made 

 to the use of these, in recent cases of diarrhoea, as to that of 

 astringents ; but on no good grounds : for the effect of opiates, 

 as astringent, is never very permanent ; and an evacuation de- 



