Medicines which are capable of producing the Menstrual discharge.
As Amenorrhœa, or retention of the menses, is generally the effect of a
morbid state of the body, it follows that remedies capable of acting as
Emmenagogues can only be _relative_ agents, unless indeed we are
disposed to accede to the opinion so generally maintained in the
writings of the older physicians, but now generally discarded, _that
certain substances exert a specific[156] action upon the uterus_. It may
certainly be asserted without fear of contradiction, that there are many
substances which, when received into the stomach, have their stimulant
operation more particularly determined to one part than to another;
alkalics, for example, to the kidneys; cantharides to the bladder;
mercury to the salivary glands, &c. Reasoning therefore by analogy, it
was not unphilosophical to conclude, that similar medicines might exist
with respect to the uterus; but experience has negatived the
supposition, there being no proof of any of the substances styled
_Emmenagogues_ producing their effects by any _specific_ influence upon
the uterine system. If the term _Emmenagogue_ be assumed conventionally,
according to this view of the subject, it may be retained without any
fear of error, otherwise it would be wiser to remove the name from our
classification.
The suppression of the catamenia usually depends upon a debilitated
state of the body, although it is sometimes the consequence of a
plethoric diathesis; in the former cases tonics, in the latter,
venesection may display the powers of an emmenagogue; upon which
occasion, I have frequently derived the greatest benefit by cupping the
patient upon the loins. Where the disease occurs in young women, about
the age of puberty, it is very generally connected with extreme debility
of the system; the preparations of iron, bark, and other invigorating
medicines, are accordingly the most likely to succeed in its cure.
Whereas in full florid habits, when the catamenia are suddenly
suppressed, _Laxatives_, _Diaphoretics_, or _blood-letting_, afford the
surest means of relief.
There are two other classes of medicine which may occasionally prove
emmenagogue—ACRID PURGATIVES, which act upon the rectum, and hence by
_contiguous sympathy_ upon the uterus, as _Aloes_, &c. and STIMULATING
DIURETICS, as _Cantharides_, the _Turpentines_, &c. which are supposed
to excite the womb, sympathetically, by their stimulus upon the bladder.
Nor is the advantageous influence of mercury to be overlooked, which, in
cases of morbid action in the secreting functions, prove a Herculean
remedy.