NAT. ORDER. PAPAVERACE^. 
the patient. Besides the sedative power of Opium, it is known to 
act more or less as a stimulant, exciting the motion of the blood ; 
but this increased action has been ingeniously, and, as we think, 
rationally ascribed to that general law of the animal economy, by 
which any noxious influence is resisted by a consequent re-action 
of the system. By a certain conjoined effort of this sedative and 
stimulant effect. Opium has been thought to produce intoxication, 
a quality for which it is very much used in some of the eastern 
countries. 
We shall now proceed to consider the use of Opium in par- 
ticular diseases, beginning with fevers. 
In most continued fevers of this climate, though oriorinating 
from contagion, or certain corruptions of human effluvia, &c., 
there is at the beginninor more or less of inflammatory diathesis ; 
and while this continues, Opium would generally aggravate the 
symptoms, and prove dangerous. Its use is likewise forbidden in 
the more advanced stage of this fever, whenever topical inflamma- 
tion of the brain is ascertained, which sometimes exists, and pro- 
duces delirium, though other symptoms of the nervous and putrid 
kind prevail. But when irritation upon the brain is not of the 
inflammatory kind, and debility has made much progress ; or 
where delirium is accompanied with spasmodic affections, Opium 
is a sovereign remedy, and may be employed in large doses 
every eight hours, unless a remission of the symptoms, and sleep 
take place. 
In intermittent fevers, Opium, in combination with other med- 
icines, was much used by the ancients ; but since the introduction 
of the Peruvian bark. Opium is seldom trusted to for the cure of 
these disorders. This medicine, however, has been strongly re- 
commended as an effectual means of stopping the recurrence of 
the febrile paroxysms ; and has been given before the fit, in the 
cold stage, in the hot stage, and during the interval, with the best 
effects, producing immediate relief, and in a short time curing the 
