VETERINARY MATERIA MEDICA, 
117 
promptly extends its stimulating- power to the nervous and circu¬ 
latory systems, first by sympathy, and afterwards by absorption. 
Alcohol is rarely administered alone, internally, to any quadru¬ 
ped. It is usually charged with some medicinal principle, and 
lowered either with water or some aromatic infusion. Its sti¬ 
mulating properties assist or modify those of the substances with 
which it is associated. 
Alcohol is one of the most valuable vehicles used in pharmacy. 
It is the very best dissolvent of a great many medicaments, the 
employment of which is rendered more easy, and their action . 
increased—their particles being separated, and their absorption 
favoured. 
Mixed with water or an aromatic infusion, it is frequently 
employed externally to hasten the resolution of chronic swellings, 
to cleanse old wounds, and to strengthen the tendons and arti¬ 
cular ligaments. 
Associated with resins, or camphor, or essential oils, or some 
mineral acids, it composes many officinal preparations, the indica¬ 
tions of which are frequent and varied. It is the aqueous 
alcohol, or ordinary rectified spirit, that is usually employed. 
Fermented liquors owe the greater part of their stimulating- 
property to the alcohol which they contain. 
Sulphuric Ether stands first among the diffusible stimulants; 
at least its action is the most prompt and energetic. When re¬ 
ceived into the stomach, it suddenly excites that organ, and imme¬ 
diately reacts on the circulatory and nervous systems, whose 
f unctions it seems, in some cases, to render natural and regular. 
Its great volatility, and the readiness with which it is ab¬ 
sorbed, renders its influence prompt and general, but it is not 
lasting. Although different in different quadrupeds, its effects 
are less in all of them than in man, whose nervous susceptibi¬ 
lity is much greater than theirs. 
It is an antispasmodic, a carminative, and a sedative. It is 
used in all nervous affections, indigestions, and cholic, when 
there are no marked inflammatory phenomena. It should not 
be forgotten, that it is an excitant, and that it displays its in¬ 
fluence, and calms certain perverted organic movements, by 
changing the mode of morbid excitation, and modifying the 
sensibility. It is administered to larger animals, either in water 
or some appropriate fluid, in doses of from half an ounce to three 
ounces; and the dose should be repeated several times a-day. 
It is usually associated, according to circumstances, with am¬ 
monia, camphor, opium, or valerian. Mixed with an eaual quan¬ 
tity ol alcohol, it constitutes the “ Anodyne Liquor of Hoffman.’* 
but whose effect is much less than that of pure ether. 
VOL. IV. 
R 
