THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XXXIV 
No. 401. 
1861. 
Fourth Series. 
No. 77. 
Communications and Cases. 
ON THERAPEUTICS. 
By Professor Brown, M.R.C.V.S., 
Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. 
(Continued from 1 95 .) 
THERAPEUTIC ACTION OF THE SECOND GROUP. 
When at the commencement we endeavoured to justify the 
arrangement of all medicinal agents into three groups, we 
claimed for each of these the possession of a distinctive cha¬ 
racter, viz., for the first group an universal power of exalting 
action ; for the second, the opposite power of depressing 
action; and for the third, the property of inducing a change 
in some of the constituents of the body. 
The subdivisions of the first group-—cathartics, stimulants, 
diuretics, diaphoretics, tonics, and counter-irritants, have 
been discussed in reference to their therapeutic effects; a 
review of the observations upon them will, we think, suffi¬ 
ciently show that each class contains those drugs alone which, 
however varied their composition and properties, agree in the 
possession of a common power of inducing excess, and to be 
consequently remedial for those diseases in which “defect” 
is the actual and essential element. 
The second group includes a number of agents hich, 
although differing widely in their nature, are allied by the com¬ 
mon property of decreasing action, and hence are directly op¬ 
posed to the agents of the first group. We do not assert them 
to be sedative in the sense in which the word is ordinarily ap- 
xxxiv. 19 
