ON THERAPEUTICS. 
7 
elements of these diseases are not of a nature to require 
agents of the first group at all; the mere removal of the con¬ 
stipation is all we can expect even under the most favorable 
circumstances. This result is of trifling consequence com¬ 
pared with the more immediately beneficial effects of seda¬ 
tives, which attack the prominent elements of these maladies, 
besides that their use is consistent with the system of 
allopathic treatment. The ad cajptandum arguments about 
i: relieving the system by unloading the bowels,” and cleansing 
the stomach, &c., fail to impress us. The necessity for a 
healthy action of the intestines we perceive, but not the 
necessity for purgation as the most available method of 
restoring it. 
The use of purgatives in cases of paralysis and coma we 
oppose for similar reasons. These diseases consist in de¬ 
fective or suspended nervous action, and are only consistently 
treated by medicines, or other agencies, which are capable of 
stimulating the nervous system. Purgatives, as far as we 
know 7 , possess no such capability, and are therefore only 
employed from custom, or for the purpose of overcoming 
constipation which is a consequence of the suspended nervous 
functions ; and, as we have said, is removed spontaneously as 
soon as those functions are restored. 
During any system of training, the action of cathartics 
cannot but be injurious, where none of the reasons we have 
given for their use are present. Nor is their exhibition more 
justifiable when the object is to prepare an animal for a 
surgical operation. In fine, active purgation seems to us to 
be desirable only under the circumstances we have men¬ 
tioned, viz., where something is to be removed from the 
alimentary canal, or some habitual discharge to be tem¬ 
porarily represented by a new one thus artificially induced. 
Cathartic agents, however, w 7 e do not hesitate to exhibit in 
small doses, in a variety of diseases W'here the different 
secretions are defective. In such cases we confess to a 
preference for calomel, and the saline purgatives, whose 
diffused action is so much more effective than a local one in 
febrile cases. Enemas are next in importance; they are 
innocuous, a rare merit, and most valuable in constipation 
from defective muscular action of the rectum. Aloes, croton, 
and oils, we should employ in those few 7 cases w 7 here we 
desire to produce full purgative effects. 
In concluding this section of our subject, we are anxious 
to avoid the charge of having taken an extreme view of the 
matter under discussion. Purgatives are so popular as 
remedies for everything, that to stigmatise them as injurious 
