76 GENERAL THERAPEUTICS FOR VETERINARIANS 



duction of hypersemia and inflammation by the application of 

 irritant ointments and by firing (see that chapter). 



The derivative method consists of the employment of cathartics 

 (eserine, aloes, salts), sialagogues and diaphoretics (arecoline, 

 pilocarpine), and diuretics (digitalis, strophanthus, diuretin, 

 agurin). 



Specific resorbents are iodine and potassium iodide (goitre, 

 actinomycosis), mercury and salvarsan (syphilis in man); also the 

 chemical antidotes for poisons. 



The operative methods consist in removing pathological fluids 

 by puncture and incision, phlebotomy, etc. 



The following group of medicines are usually given the special 

 designation of resorbents in general therapeutics, although the mode 

 of action of the individual drugs is in many instances very- 

 different. 



RESORBING MEDICINES. RESORBENTS 



Sjmonyms: Resolvents; discutients; anti-plastics; alterants; dissolving, 

 disintegrating, liquefying, absorbing medicines. 



Action and Uses. — Resorbents or resolvents are drugs that 

 bring about an absorption, solution, liquefaction, disintegration or 

 removal of disease products from the tissues or body cavities, 

 chiefly through the medium of the lymph system. None of them 

 exert any direct influence upon the processes of absorption in the 

 lymph vessels, but only indirectly accelerate in different ways the 

 absorption of pathological products present in the body. Some 

 operate by increasing the general metabolism (alkalies), others 

 by causing an outwandering of white blood-corpuscles with the 

 resulting phagocytosis and histolysis (tincture of iodine, blisters), 

 and still others by destroying the infectious agents and killing the 

 pathological tissue cells and instituting a degenerative meta- 

 morphosis of the same (potassium iodide, iodoform, mercury, sal- 

 varsan). Additional modes of action are: by transforming solid 

 pathological products into a fluid and more readily resorbable 

 form (sodium chloride); by increasing the arterial blood supply 

 (aeries); by causing a thickening of the blood and consequent 



