628 PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



mentioned, practitioners have commonly employed in this dis- 

 ease both emetics and purgatives. When the appetite and di- 

 gestion are considerably impaired, vomiting, if neither violent 

 nor frequently repeated, seems to be of service ; and, by a mod- 

 erate agitation of the abdominal viscera, may in some measure 

 obviate the stagnation and consequent swelling that usually oc- 

 cur in them. 



As the tumid state of the abdomen, so constantly to be met 

 with in this disease, seems to depend very much upon a tym- 

 panitic affection of the intestines ; so, both by obviating this, 

 and by deriving from the abdominal viscera, frequent gentle 

 purgatives may be of service. Zeviani, perhaps properly, re- 

 commends in particular rhubarb ; which, besides its purgative 

 quality, has those also of bitter and astringent. 



MDCC XXXVI. I have now mentioned most of the reme- 

 dies commonly employed by the practitioners of former times ; 

 but I must not omit mentioning some others that have been 

 lately suggested. The late Mr. De Haen recommends the 

 testacea ; and assures us of their having been employed with 

 success ; but in the few trials which I have had occasion to 

 make, their good effects did not appear. 



The late Baron Van Swieten gives us one instance of rickets 

 cured by the use of hemlock ; but I do not know that the prac- 

 tice has been repeated. 



