446 THE LAWS OF ORGANIC 



DXLIV. Emetics have sometimes been em- 

 ployed, and, with advantage, in different cases of 

 diarrhoea. This disease may be produced by a 

 variety of causes ; but it is not improbable that 

 the proximate cause is the same, with slight modi- 

 fications, in every instance, viz. a morbid increase 

 of action in the secernent vessels of the intestines. 

 When indigestion and crudities of the stomach 

 have been present in this disease, they have 

 generally been regarded as the exciting causes ; 

 and, in order to remove them, vomiting has been 

 recommended.* It is impossible to deny that 

 indigestion and crudities of the stomach have 

 very frequently occasioned this condition of the 

 system. If the stomach, from being oppressed 

 either by quantity or improper quality of food, 

 have its ordinary functions disordered, its con- 

 tents will not be so perfectly concocted as usual, 

 and these, therefore, are likely to irritate the se- 

 creting surface of the intestinal canal. But aU 

 though such causes as these may occasionally ex- 

 ist to produce diarrhoea, yet, I am disposed to 

 think, that the debilitated or deranged state of 

 the system is to be regarded as the principal 

 condition which gives rise to the different dis- 

 orders of the abdominal viscera. If this view be 

 allowed to be correct, emetics have a more ex- 

 tensive influence upon the animal economy than 



* Vide CUJ.LEN'S First Lines of the Practice of Physic, 



MCCCCXCIX. 



