40 
AN ESSAY ON LACTUC ARIUM. 
as contrary to the exhibition of this remedy, which must 
also never be administered while the work of digestion is 
going forward. Its sedative effects on the nervous and vas- 
cular system enables it to relieve pain by producing sleep, 
without any appearance of narcotic effects; it has also been 
remarked that it usually succeeds in cases where opium has 
completely failed. It is from these truths that have become 
trite, but which, nevertheless, cannot be too often repeated, 
after the miscalculations the thridace of our pharmacopo- 
lists have enabled us to place on our annals, as much per- 
haps from the insufficiency of the doses, as from other causes, 
which I must pass over in silence. 
If the most celebrated physicians of antiquity, with Hip- 
pocrates at their head, never feared to place their confidence 
in lettuce, why should we refuse ours to lactucarium, or to 
thridace, now the labours of our contemporaries have 
placed their efficacy beyond doubt ? The " plant of the 
Eunuchs," as the Pythagorians called it, with some reason 
— that which made Musa, the physician to the Emperor 
Augustus, worthy of a statue — has not been able to fall in 
the estimation of mankind ; and if, in our days, there are 
practitioners who despise its sedative powers, it is because, 
in these times, medical scepticism, become systematic and 
too exclusive in certain minds, possesses a most mischievous 
influence even on the most valued agents. Extremes in 
all things, particularly in medicine, are extremely deplora- 
ble ; but the time has not yet arrived when what is reason- 
able shall be right. In the meantime, if it be true, as the 
immortal Bacon says, '-'that we rise from facts to axioms," 
and that afterwards we redescend from axioms to practice, 
we must necessarily acknowledge that no agent deserves 
better than lactucarium the various appliances to which it 
has been subjected, and believe that the opinion of men of 
science, without any exception, will be completely in its 
favour. — Ibid, from Jour, de Chim. 
