IODINB, DIGITALIS, ETC. 979 



arresting or diminishing the nutritive process,) 

 cause the removal of buboes, swelled testicle, 

 effusions of lymph, serum, &c. 



The general opinion is, that mercury, iodine, 

 digitalis, and some other medicines, produce these 

 effects by augmenting the activity of the absor- 

 bents ; whereas they operate by diminishing the 

 process of nutrition, while that of absorption con- 

 tinues to go on ; causing a more or less rapid 

 waste of the whole body, by which effusions and 

 morbid growths are removed.* It is in this way 

 that small doses of calomel have been supposed 

 to be useful in removing the effects of chronic 

 inflammation of the larynx, trachea, and bronchi, 

 which is often attended with an effusion of 

 lymph, and a thickening of the mucous mem- 



* It is maintained by medical authors of high repute, that 

 salivation is useful in fever, by preventing the nutritive process. 

 But I have proved that the proximate cause of fever, and in 

 reality of all the other forms of disease, is a derangement of the 

 nutritive process; and we have just seen that the use of mercury 

 induces hectic fever. Why then give a medicine which produces 

 the very symptoms we wish to counteract and remove ? Yet there 

 is reason to believe, that when given in four grain doses every 

 four hours through the day, and followed by some more brisk 

 cathartic, calomel is an excellent remedy for the removal of 

 morbid excretions from the alimentary canal. I cannot, however, 

 subscribe the prevalent doctrine of the schools, that it in- 

 creases the secretion of bile, an opinion which seems to have 

 arisen from the fact, that, like many other medicines and mor- 

 bific agents, it arrests or greatly diminishes the process of diges- 

 tion ; so that there is but little chyme formed to unite with the 

 bile, which, therefore, seems to be more abundant than usual. 



