THE NEUTRAL SALTS AND ALKALIES. 981 



typhus fever.* It is, moreover, certain, that 

 when taken into the stomach daily in small doses 

 for a considerable time, they induce great ema- 

 ciation, a dissolved condition of the blood, and 

 many of the symptoms that characterize scurvy. 

 Many of them operate as diuretics merely from 

 their refrigerating influence, by which perspira- 

 tion is checked, and the amount of urine propor- 

 tionally augmented. But when taken with hot 

 drinks, they sometimes operate as diaphoretics. 



From the foregoing brief and imperfect exami- 

 nation of this important subject, it is evident that 

 nearly all the most active articles employed in 

 the treatment of diseases are more or less hostile 

 to the animal economy, as maintained by many 

 of the most enlightened physicians of ancient 

 and modern times. There is reason to believe 

 that the prevalent abuse of emetics and purga- 

 tives has been owing in part to the erroneous 

 opinion of the Greeks, that the proximate cause 

 of fever and other forms of disease is a super- 

 abundance of bile, which ought to be carried off. 



* Magendie further ascertained that, by introducing a portion 

 of finely powdered potato starch into the carotid artery of a dog, 

 he was attacked with dyspnoea, cough, prostration of strength, 

 diarrhoea, and fever: that when he injected a dram of varnish, 

 holding some sifted pulverized animal charcoal in suspension, 

 into the femoral artery of another dog, after tying it, the limb be- 

 came swoln below the ligature, cold, motionless, and insensible, 

 followed by extravasation of blood into the cellular tissue, ob- 

 struction of the capillaries, and gangrene. 



