176 
REVIEW. 
of the bowels is necessary to a state of health. When this is interrupted, 
symptoms of derangement of the digestive organs and abdominal viscera 
occur, and when long continued, are followed by emaciation. To such, mild 
purgatives are beneficial. When costiveness is combined with griping from 
spasmodic constriction, the disease is colic. In this disease cathartics, com- 
bined with opiates, are the remedies to be applied. In intussusception, 
injections have been recommended, but we believe no human aid will avail, 
in such a case, to save the patient ; gangrene supervenes, and death ensues. 
“ And now I close my observations on purgatives by these few lines from 
Pope’s * Essay on Man 
‘ Thus then to Man the voice of Nature spake : 
<c Go, from the creatures thy instruction take ; 
Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield ; 
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field : 
Thy art of building from the bee receive ; 
Learn from the mole to plough, the worm to weave ; 
Learn from the little nautilus to sail, 
Spread the thin oar and catch the driving gale.” ’ 
DERIVATION OE THE WORD INTOXICATION. 
The term intoxication , applied to a vice, unfortunately the 
bane of too many countries, we are told, is derived, by 
Johnson and Webster, from “in’* and “ toxicum,** which 
latter Pliny says is from “ taxus,** a species .of tree. The 
yew — taxas baccata — has been conjectured by Dr. Pickells 
as furnishing the “ toxicum” of the ancients, a most active 
poison ; so much so, that Ovid alludes to the “ barbarians** 
using it for poisoning their arrows. 
Should not the very name deter from the improper use of 
fluids capable of producing such effects ? 
THE BRAIN IN SPIRITS. 
Hytri, the anatomist, used to say that he could distinguish, 
in the darkest room, by one stroke of the scalpel, the brain of 
the inebriate from that of the person who had lived soberly. 
Now and then he would congratulate his class upon the 
possession of a drunkard’s brain, admirably fitted from its 
hardness and more complete preservation for the purposes of 
demonstration. When the anatomist wishes to preserve a 
human brain for any length of time, he effects his purpose by 
keeping that object in a vessel of alcohol. From a soft pulpy 
substance, it then becomes comparatively hard. But the 
inebriate, anticipating the anatomist, begins the indurating 
process before death. 
