266 COLIC. 



under very different modes of treatment, persons are apt to 

 attribute great curative powers to a variety of agents, of 

 which it would be more appropriate to say, that they were 

 not sufficiently injurious to prove fatal, and that recovery was 

 effected in spite of them, rather than to allege that they have 

 been the cause of the cure. For the preservation of life, 

 nature is far from being wholly dependent on the resources 

 of art, and it is only by availing of these according to a 

 sound discrimination, that good can be effected in the majo- 

 rity of cases. 



Oil of turpentine has long been the favourite medicine for 

 the relief of spasmodic colic; but it is so powerful a stimulant, 

 it so often tends to retard rather than to facilitate the evacu- 

 ation of the bowels, that its administration is much more 

 frequently followed by symptoms of inflammation and death 

 than is any other mode of treatment. 



This disease well illustrates the great rule, that no plan of 

 treatment is so reasonable and so successful as that which 

 aims at removing effects by directly attacking their causes, no 

 practice so sound as that which follows in nature's steps, and 

 avails of her resources to the utmost extent, as the best 

 mode of overcoming unnatural conditions. This is the 

 great basis of my father's plan, which he has strictly carried 

 out for the last thirty years. 



I have said that colicky pains are but a symptom, the 

 cause of which is an overloaded state of the bowels, unable to 

 relieve themselves : what more rational than to believe that, 

 with the lightening of the load, the painful sense of its weight 

 will be relieved? that removal of the source of irritation 

 will be attended with ease and comfort? Experience proves 

 that such is the case; and there can be no question that by 

 far the safest plan of treatment to be adopted in colic is to 

 aim at evacuating the bowels; with a view to carrying out 



