174 
REVIEW. 
which cannot fail to profit, and that more especially the 
student. Some of our readers may, perhaps, remember that, 
at one of the Conversaziones given by his father to the mem- 
bers of the profession, Mr. J. Field placed on the tables a 
very neat collection of these drugs. These have constituted 
the texts of his theme. 
The essay closes with the following extract, which we give, 
entire : 
“ The symptoms, independent of the existence of specific disease, and 
exclusive of a confined state of the bowels, which indicate the necessity for 
the administration of cathartics, are a fulness of the belly, without tender- 
ness or pressure, the urine of a high colour, owing to its being loaded with 
bile or fluid dejections. 
“The first general intention in administering purgatives is to clear the 
intestinal canal, for which purpose they must be given in full doses, and 
those selected which will act on the whole course of the canal. The second 
is to correct unhealthy secretions. The third is to augment the discharge 
from the intestinal exhaleuts, so as to diminish the bulk of the circulating 
mass, and to lower excitement. The fourth is to lessen the determination 
of blood to particular parts by employing a purgative to produce the effect 
of a counter-irritant. 
“ Cathartics are employed advantageously in many fevers ; thus, when 
fevers depend on morbific matters, it is necessary they should be expelled, 
and this is often effected by purgatives : cathartics are supposed to have 
the power of cutting short the attack, and certainly when there are vitiated 
biliary or intestinal secretions, their expulsion must be of great benefit ; 
and in most fevers there is generally found great constipation of the bowels. 
Dr. Hamilton, in his work on ‘Purgatives/ regards their utility to depend 
on their acting upon the whole extent of the intestinal canal, and their car- 
rying off feculent matter rendered offensive and irritating by constipation. 
In thoracic inflammation, cathartics should be carefully avoided, though it 
is necessary that the bowels should be kept in such a condition that their 
regular action is not interfered with. In enteritis, purging is sometimes 
necessary; and instead of increasing the inflammatory action which con- 
stitutes the disease, it diminishes it by removing the hardened faeces or other 
causes of inflammation, by increasing the exhalation of fluids into the intes- 
tines, unloads the vessels, and relieves the diseased parts by the same 
process which Nature adopts. In strangulated hernia, again, after the 
reduction of the gut, the danger of the case is considerably lessened by 
unloading the gut ; but at the same time much caution must be used in the 
agent which we employ, so that too much inflammation may not be set up. 
Again, in diseases of the other abdominal viscera, as the liver, the action 
of cathartics is most salutary ; but, when the liver is attacked with inflam- 
mation, they must not be used, as purgatives add fuel to the fire ; they 
augment the excitement and produce much mischief. The close connection 
between the skin and the intestinal canal, leads us readily to suggest the 
great benefit to be derived from purgatives in cutaneous diseases. Cathartics 
are generally administered in dysentery when the intestinal inflammation is 
not attended with much diarrhoea; the contents of the bowels acquire an 
acrid character, to be removed ; but in these cases care must be used in the 
