476 MR. friend’s reply to MR. HARRISON. 
ing process ?” Now, considering this as more than tantamount to 
unloading the stomachs, I answer I would not. But while I 
should most certainly employ tonics and stimulants, such as I 
recommended in The Veterinarian for June, for the same 
purpose, I should, Jrom thorough conviction (on the view I have 
taken of the subject), consider that I did less than my duty if I 
were to administer purgative jnedicines no more powerful, than 
those considered hy Mr, H. to have produced death in his cases by 
superpurgaiion. 
You will readily conceive that I could cite parallel cases to 
those noticed by Mr. H.; but as they are wmat he has selected 
to illustrate his owm views, and as I could not possibly quote or 
even invent cases more strongly proving the necessity of my mode 
of treatment, as opposed to his, I wall make use of them, and 
they are already before you. Here are four cases, three of which 
terminated fatally, and one recovered. I perfectly agree with 
Mr. H.,that, with regard to the first three, they were all cases of 
acute indigestion ; that the view he took of them, viz. that the 
stomachs w'ere in a state of torpor, and, consequently, that their 
contents became a load and burden to them, and that it was 
necessary to relieve them of this load, was correct in theory; 
and the mode of treatment proposed to be adopted was perfectly 
rational, though the means employed w’ere inefficient. 
In endeavouring to make any improvement of these cases, it 
becomes necessary to shew w^hat important facts present them¬ 
selves in the detail of the symptoms, treatment, and appearances 
after death. The most prominent are these :—that in all the 
three cases, the most violent efforts of which nature w^as capable 
were made to relieve that portion of the abdominal viscera that was 
sufiering, in order to lighten that load which had already become 
burdensome and oppressive to the stomachs, torpid, enervated, 
and incapable as they w^ere of exerting their native energy. Was 
it necessary, then, to give medicine to act upon the intestines 
alone ? No. Nature was here doing all that was requisite ; and 
that no impediment might remain in the way of those parts of 
the digestive organs already suffering, an increased action was 
given to that portion of the alimentary canal still under the 
controul of nature; and they were hastening to propel foiAvard 
their contents, to make room for the oppressed stomachs to act. 
Mr. H. saw all this, and proposed his curative treatment ac¬ 
cordingly ; but w^ere the means employed sufficient for the end 
proposed ? 
To determine this, we must consider them in conjunction with 
the appearance of these parts after death. To the first case he 
gave altogether magnes. sulph. ; and the stomachs after death 
