PART III.

CONTAINING

THE ARTICLES OF THE MATERIA MEDICA,

WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE

OPERATION OF MEDICINES.

* * * * *

IN VIVUM CORPUS

AGUNT MEDICAMENTA.

* * * * *

PREFACE.

THE MATERIA MEDICA includes all those substances, which may contribute to

the restoration of health. These may be conveniently distributed under

seven articles according to the diversity of their operations.

1. NUTRIENTIA, or those things which preserve in their natural state the

due exertions of all the irritative motions.

2. INCITANTIA, or those things which increase the exertions of all the

irritative motions.

3. SECERNENTIA, or those things which increase the irritative motions,

which constitute secretion.

4. SORBENTIA, or those things which increase the irritative motions, which

constitute absorption.

5. INVERTENTIA, or those things which invert the natural order of the

successive irritative motions.

6. REVERTENTIA, or those things which restore the natural order of the

inverted irritative motions.

7. TORPENTIA, those things which diminish the exertions of all the

irritative motions.

It is necessary to apprize the reader, that in the following account of the

virtues of Medicines their usual doses are always supposed to be exhibited;

and the patient to be exposed to the degree of exterior heat, which he has

been accustomed to, (where the contrary is not mentioned), as any variation

of either of these circumstances varies their effects.

* * * * *

ARTICLES

OF THE

MATERIA MEDICA.

* * * * *

ART. I.

NUTRIENTIA.

I. 1. Those things, which preserve in their natural state the due exertions

of all the irritative motions, are termed nutrientia; they produce the

growth, and restore the waste, of the system. These consist of a variety of

mild vegetable and animal substances, water, and air.

2. Where stronger stimuli have been long used, they become necessary for

this purpose, as mustard, spice, salt, beer, wine, vinegar, alcohol, opium.

Which however, as they are unnatural stimuli, and difficult to manage in

respect to quantity, are liable to shorten the span of human life, sooner

rendering the system incapable of being stimulated into action by the

nutrientia. See Sect XXXVII. 4. On the same account life is shorter in

warmer climates than in more temperate ones.

II. OBSERVATIONS ON THE NUTRIENTIA.

I. 1. The flesh of animals contains more nourishment, and stimulates our

absorbent and secerning vessels more powerfully, than the vegetable

productions, which we use as food; for the carnivorous animals can fast

longer without injury than the graminivorous; and we feel ourselves warmer

and stronger after a meal of flesh than of grain. Hence in diseases

attended with cold extremities and general debility this kind of diet is

preferred; as in rickets, dropsy, scrophula, and in hysteric and

hypochondriac cases, and to prevent the returns of agues. Might not flesh

in small quantities bruised to a pulp be more advantageously used in fevers

attended with debility than vegetable diet?

That flesh, which is of the darkest colour, generally contains more

nourishment, and stimulates our vessels more powerfully, than the white

kinds. The flesh of the carnivorous and piscivorous animals is so

stimulating, that it seldom enters into the food of European nations,

except the swine, the Soland goose (Pelicanus Bassanus), and formerly the

swan. Of these the swine and the swan are fed previously upon vegetable

aliment; and the Soland goose is taken in very small quantity, only as a

whet to the appetite. Next to these are the birds, that feed upon insects,

which are perhaps the most stimulating and the most nutritive of our usual

food.

It is said that a greater quantity of volatile alkali can be obtained from

this kind of flesh, to which has been ascribed its stimulating quality. But

it is more probable, that fresh flesh contains only the elements of

volatile alkali.

2. Next to the dark coloured flesh of animals, the various tribes of

shell-fish seem to claim their place, and the wholesome kinds of mushrooms,

which must be esteemed animal food, both for their alkalescent tendency,

their stimulating quality, and the quantity of nourishment, which they

afford; as oysters, lobsters, crabfish, shrimps; mushrooms; to which

perhaps might be added some of the fish without scales; as the eel,

barbolt, tench, smelt, turbot, turtle.

The flesh of many kinds of fish, when it is supposed to have undergone a

beginning putrefaction, becomes luminous in the dark. This seems to shew a

tendency in the phosphorus to escape, and combine with the oxygen of the

atmosphere; and would hence shew, that this kind of flesh is not so

perfectly animalized as those before mentioned. This light, as it is

frequently seen on rotten wood, and sometimes on veal, which has been kept

too long, as I have been told, is commonly supposed to have its cause from

putrefaction; but is nevertheless most probably of phosphoric origin, like

that seen in the dark on oyster-shells, which have previously been ignited,

and afterwards exposed to the sunshine, and on the Bolognian stone. See

Botan. Gard. Vol. I. Cant. I. line 1 and 2, the note.

3. The flesh of young animals, as of lamb, veal, and sucking pigs, supplies

us with a still less stimulating food. The broth of these is said to become

sour, and continues so a considerable time before it changes into

putridity; so much does their flesh partake of the chemical properties of

the milk, with which these animals are nourished.

4. The white meats, as of turkey, partridge, pheasant, fowl, with their

eggs, seem to be the next in mildness; and hence are generally first

allowed to convalescents from inflammatory diseases.

5. Next to those should be ranked the white river-fish, which have scales,

as pike, perch, gudgeon.

II. 1. Milk unites the animal with the vegetable source of our nourishment,

partaking of the properties of both. As it contains sugar, and will

therefore ferment and produce a kind of wine or spirit, which is a common

liquor in Siberia; or will run into an acid by simple agitation, as in the

churning of cream; and lastly, as it contains coagulable lymph, which will

undergo the process of putrefaction like other animal substances, as in old

cheese.

2. Milk may be separated by rest or by agitation into cream, butter,

butter-milk, whey, curd. The cream is easier of digestion to adults,

because it contains less of the coagulum or cheesy part, and is also more

nutritive. Butter consisting of oil between an animal and vegetable kind

contains still more nutriment, and in its recent state is not difficult of

digestion if taken in moderate quantity. See Art. I. 2. 3. 2. Butter-milk

if it be not bitter is an agreeable and nutritive fluid, if it be bitter it

has some putrid parts of the cream in it, which had been kept too long; but

is perhaps not less wholesome for being sour to a certain degree: as the

inferior people in Scotland choose sour milk in preference to skimmed milk

before it is become sour. Whey is the least nutritive and easiest of

digestion. And in the spring of the year, when the cows feed on young

grass, it contains so much of vegetable properties, as to become a salutary

potation, when drank to about a pint every morning to those, who during the

winter have taken too little vegetable nourishment, and who are thence

liable to bilious concretions.

3. Cheese is of various kinds, according to the greater or less quantity of

cream, which it contains, and according to its age. Those cheeses, which

are easiest broken to pieces in the mouth, are generally easiest of

digestion, and contain most nutriment. Some kinds of cheese, though slow of

digestion, are also slow in changing by chemical processes in the stomach,

and therefore will frequently agree well with those, who have a weak

digestion; as I have seen toasted cheese vomited up a whole day after it

was eaten without having undergone any apparent change, or given any

uneasiness to the patient. It is probable a portion of sugar, or of animal

fat, or of the gravy of boiled or roasted meat, mixed with cheese at the

time of making it, might add to its pleasant and nutritious quality.

4. The reason, why autumnal milk is so much thicker or coagulable than

vernal milk, is not easy to understand, but as new milk is in many respects

similar to chyle, it may be considered as food already in part digested by

the animal it is taken from, and thence supplies a nutriment of easy

digestion. But as it requires to be curdled by the gastric acid, before it

can enter the lacteals, as is seen in the stomachs of calves, it seems more

suitable to children, whose stomachs abound more with acidity, than to

adults; but nevertheless supplies good nourishment to many of the latter,

and particularly to those, who use vegetable food, and whose stomachs have

not been much accustomed to the unnatural stimulus of spice, salt, and

spirit. See Class I. 1. 2. 5.

III. 1. The seeds, roots, leaves, and fruits of plants, constitute the

greatest part of the food of mankind; the respective quantities of

nourishment, which these contain, may perhaps be estimated from the

quantity of starch, or of sugar, they can be made to produce: in

farinaceous seeds, the mucilage seems gradually to be converted into

starch, while they remain in our granaries; and the starch by the

germination of the young plant, as in making malt from barley, or by animal

digestion, is converted into sugar. Hence old wheat and beans contain more

starch than new; and in our stomachs other vegetable and animal materials

are converted into sugar; which constitutes in all creatures a part of

their chyle.

Hence it is probable, that sugar is the most nutritive part of vegetables;

and that they are more nutritive, as they are convertible in greater

quantity into sugar by the power of digestion; as appears from sugar being

found in the chyle of all animals, and from its existing in great quantity

in the urine of patients in the diabaetes, of which a curious case is

related in Sect. XXIX. 4. where a man labouring under this malady eat and

drank an enormous quantity, and sometimes voided sixteen pints of water in

a day, with an ounce of sugar in each pint.

2. Oil, when mixed with mucilage or coagulable lymph, as in cream or new

milk, is easy of digestion, and constitutes probably the most nutritive

part of animal diet; as oil is another part of the chyle of all animals. As

these two materials, sugar and butter, contain much nutriment under a small

volume, and readily undergo some chemical change so as to become acid or

rancid; they are liable to disturb weak stomachs, when taken in large

quantity, more than aliment, which contains less nourishment, and is at the

same time less liable to chemical changes; because the chyle is produced

quicker than the torpid lacteals can absorb it, and thence undergoes a

further chemical process. Sugar and butter therefore are not so easily

digested, when taken in large quantity, as those things, which contain less

nutriment; hence, where the stomach is weak, they must be used in less

quantity. But the custom of some people in restraining children entirely

from them, is depriving them of a very wholesome, agreeable, and

substantial part of their diet. Honey, manna, sap-juice, are different

kinds of less pure sugar.

3. All the esculent vegetables contain a bland oil, or mucilage, or starch,

or sugar, or acid; and, as their stimulus is moderate, are properly given

alone as food in inflammatory diseases; and mixed with milk constitute the

food of thousands. Other vegetables possess various degrees and various

kinds of stimulus; and to these we are beholden for the greater part of our

Materia Medica, which produce nausea, sickness, vomiting, catharsis,

intoxication, inflammation, and even death, if unskilfully administered.

The acrid or intoxicating, and other kinds of vegetable juices, such as

produce sickness, or evacuate the bowels, or such even as are only

disagreeable to the palate, appear to be a part of the defence of those

vegetables, which possess them, from the assaults of larger animals or of

insects. As mentioned in the Botanic Garden, Part II. Cant. I. line 161,

note. This appears in a forcible manner from the perusal of some travels,

which have been published of those unfortunate people, who have suffered

shipwreck on uncultivated countries, and have with difficulty found food to

subsist, in otherwise not inhospitable climates.

4. As these acrid and intoxicating juices generally reside in the mucilage,

and not in the starch of many roots, and seeds, according to the

observation of M. Parmentier, the wholesome or nutritive parts of some

vegetables may be thus separated from the medicinal parts of them. Thus if

the root of white briony be rasped into cold water, by means of a

bread-grater made of a tinned iron plate, and agitated in it, the acrid

juice of the root along with the mucilage will be dissolved, or swim, in

the water; while a starch perfectly wholesome and nutritious will subside,

and may be used as food in times of scarcity.

M. Parmentier further observes, that potatoes contain too much mucilage in

proportion to their starch, which prevents them from being converted into

good bread. But that if the starch be collected from ten pounds of raw

potatoes by grating them into cold water, and agitating them, as above

mentioned; and if the starch thus procured be mixed with other ten pounds

of boiled potatoes, and properly subjected to fermentation like wheat

flour, that it will make as good bread as the finest wheat.

Good bread may also be made by mixing wheat-flour with boiled potatoes.

Eighteen pounds of wheat flour are said to make twenty-two pounds and a

half of bread. Eighteen pounds of wheat-flour mixed with nine pounds of

boiled potatoes, are said to make twenty-nine pounds and a half of bread.

This difference of weight must arise from the difference of the previous

dryness of the two materials. The potatoes might probably make better

flour, if they were boiled in steam, in a close vessel, made some degrees

hotter than common boiling water.

Other vegetable matters may be deprived of their too great acrimony by

boiling in water, as the great variety of the cabbage, the young tops of

white briony, water-cresses, asparagus, with innumerable roots, and some

fruits. Other plants have their acrid juices or bitter particles diminished

by covering them from the light by what is termed blanching them, as the

stems and leaves of cellery, endive, sea-kale. The former method either

extracts or decomposes the acrid particles, and the latter prevents them

from being formed. See Botanic Garden, Vol. I. additional note XXXIV. on

the Etiolation of vegetables.

5. The art of cookery, by exposing vegetable and animal substances to heat,

has contributed to increase the quantity of the food of mankind by other

means besides that of destroying their acrimony. One of these is by

converting the acerb juices of some fruits into sugar, as in the baking of

unripe pears, and the bruising of unripe apples; in both which situations

the life of the vegetable is destroyed, and the conversion of the harsh

juice into a sweet one must be performed by a chemical process; and not by

a vegetable one only, as the germination of barley in making malt has

generally been supposed.

Some circumstances, which seem to injure the life of several fruits, seem

to forward the saccharine process of their juices. Thus if some kinds of

pears are gathered a week before they would ripen on the tree, and are laid

on a heap and covered, their juice becomes sweet many days sooner. The

taking off a circular piece of the bark from a branch of a pear-tree causes

the fruit of that branch to ripen sooner by a fortnight, as I have more

than once observed. The wounds made in apples by insects occasion those

apples to ripen sooner; caprification, or the piercing of figs, in the

island of Malta, is said to ripen them sooner; and I am well informed, that

when bunches of grapes in this country have acquired their expected size,

that if the stalk of each bunch be cut half through, that they will sooner

ripen.

The germinating barley in the malt-house I believe acquires little

sweetness, till the life of the seed is destroyed, and the saccharine

process then continued or advanced by the heat in drying it. Thus in animal

digestion, the sugar produced in the stomach is absorbed by the lacteals as

fast as it is made, otherwise it ferments, and produces flatulency; so in

the germination of barley in the malt-house, so long as the new plant

lives, the sugar, I suppose, is absorbed as fast as it is made; but that,

which we use in making beer, is the sugar produced by a chemical process

after the death of the young plant, or which is made more expeditiously,

than the plant can absorb it.

It is probably this saccharine process, which obtains in new hay-stacks too

hastily, and which by immediately running into fermentation produces so

much heat as to set them on fire. The greatest part of the grain, or seeds,

or roots, used in the distilleries, as wheat, canary seed, potatoes, are

not I believe previously subjected to germination, but are in part by a

chemical process converted into sugar, and immediately subjected to vinous

fermentation; and it is probable a process may sometime be discovered of

producing sugar from starch or meal; and of separating it from them for

domestic purposes by alcohol, which dissolves sugar but not mucilage; or by

other means.

Another method of increasing the nutriment of mankind by cookery, is by

dissolving cartilages and bones, and tendons, and probably some vegetables,

in steam or water at a much higher degree of heat than that of boiling.

This is to be done in a close vessel, which is called Papin's digester; in

which, it is said, that water may be made red-hot, and will then dissolve

all animal substances; and might thus add to our quantity of food in times

of scarcity. This vessel should be made of iron, and should have an oval

opening at top, with an oval lid of iron larger than the aperture; this lid

should be slipped in endways, when the vessel is filled, and then turned,

and raised by a screw above it into contact with the under edges of the

aperture. There should also be a small tube or hole covered with a weighted

valve to prevent the danger of bursting the digester.

Where the powers of digestion are weakened, broths made by boiling animal

and vegetable substances in water afford a nutriment; though I suppose not

so great as the flesh and vegetables would afford, if taken in their solid

form, and mixed with saliva in the act of mastication. The aliment thus

prepared should be boiled but a short time, nor should be suffered to

continue in our common kitchen-utensils afterwards, as they are lined with

a mixture of half lead and half tin, and are therefore unwholesome, though

the copper is completely covered. And those soups, which have any acid or

wine boiled in them, unless they be made in silver, or in china, or in

those pot-vessels, which are not glazed by the addition of lead, are truly

poisonous; as the acid, as lemon-juice or vinegar, when made hot, erodes or

dissolves the lead and tin lining of the copper-vessels, and the leaden

glaze of the porcelain ones. Hence, where silver cannot be had, iron

vessels are preferable to tinned copper ones; or those made of tinned

iron-plates in the common tin-shops, which are said to be covered with pure

or block tin.

6. Another circumstance, which facilitates the nourishment of mankind, is

the mechanic art of grinding farinaceous seeds into powder between

mill-stones; which may be called the artificial teeth of society. It is

probable, that some soft kinds of wood, especially when they have undergone

a kind of fermentation, and become of looser texture, might be thus used as

food in times of famine.

Nor is it improbable, that hay, which has been kept in stacks, so as to

undergo the saccharine process, may be so managed by grinding and by

fermentation with yeast like bread, as to serve in part for the sustenance

of mankind in times of great scarcity. Dr. Priestley gave to a cow for some

time a strong infusion of hay in large quantity for her drink, and found

that she produced during this treatment above double the quantity of milk.

Hence if bread cannot be made from ground hay, there is great reason to

suspect, that a nutritive beverage may be thus prepared either in its

saccharine state, or fermented into a kind of beer.

In times of great scarcity there are other vegetables, which though not in

common use, would most probably afford wholesome nourishment, either by

boiling them, or drying and grinding them, or by both those processes in

succession. Of these are perhaps the tops and the bark of all those

vegetables, which are armed with thorns or prickles, as gooseberry trees,

holly, gorse, and perhaps hawthorn. The inner bark of the elm tree makes a

kind of gruel. And the roots of fern, and probably of very many other

roots, as of grass and of clover taken up in winter, might yield

nourishment either by boiling or baking, and separating the fibres from the

pulp by beating them; or by getting only the starch from those, which

possess an acrid mucilage, as the white briony.

7. However the arts of cookery and of grinding may increase or facilitate

the nourishment of mankind, the great source of it is from agriculture. In

the savage state, where men live solely by hunting, I was informed by Dr.

Franklin, that there was seldom more than one family existed in a circle of

five miles diameter; which in a state of pasturage would support some

hundred people, and in a state of agriculture many thousands. The art of

feeding mankind on so small a grain as wheat, which seems to have been

discovered in Egypt by the immortal name of Ceres, shewed greater ingenuity

than feeding them with the large roots of potatoes, which seem to have been

a discovery of ill-fated Mexico.

This greater production of food by agriculture than by pasturage, shews

that a nation nourished by animal food will be less numerous than if

nourished by vegetable; and the former will therefore be liable, if they

are engaged in war, to be conquered by the latter, as Abel was slain by

Cain. This is perhaps the only valid argument against inclosing open arable

fields. The great production of human nourishment by agriculture and

pasturage evinces the advantage of society over the savage state; as the

number of mankind becomes increased a thousand fold by the arts of

agriculture and pasturage; and their happiness is probably under good

governments improved in as great a proportion, as they become liberated

from the hourly fear of beasts of prey, from the daily fear of famine, and

of the occasional incursions of their cannibal neighbours.

But pasturage cannot exist without property both in the soil, and the herds

which it nurtures; and for the invention of arts, and production of tools

necessary to agriculture, some must think, and others labour; and as the

efforts of some will be crowned with greater success than that of others,

an inequality of the ranks of society must succeed; but this inequality of

mankind in the present state of the world is too great for the purposes of

producing the greatest quantity of human nourishment, and the greatest sum

of human happiness; there should be no slavery at one end of the chain of

society, and no despotism at the other.--By the future improvements of

human reason such governments may possibly hereafter be established, as may

a hundred-fold increase the numbers of mankind, and a thousand-fold their

happiness.

IV. 1. Water must be considered as a part of our nutriment, because so much

of it enters the composition of our solids as well as of our fluids; and

because vegetables are now believed to draw almost the whole of their

nourishment from this source. As in them the water is decomposed, as it is

perspired by them in the sunshine, the oxygen gas increases the quantity

and the purity of the atmosphere in their vicinity, and the hydrogen seems

to be retained, and to form the nutritive juices, and consequent secretions

of rosin, gum, wax, honey, oil, and other vegetable productions. See

Botanic Garden, Part I. Cant. IV. line 25, note. It has however other uses

in the system, besides that of a nourishing material, as it dilutes our

fluids, and lubricates our solids; and on all these accounts a daily supply

of it is required.

2. River-water is in general purer than spring-water; as the neutral salts

washed down from the earth decompose each other, except perhaps the marine

salt; and the earths, with which spring-water frequently abounds, is

precipitated; yet it is not improbable, that the calcareous earth dissolved

in the water of many springs may contribute to our nourishment, as the

water from springs, which contain earth, is said to conduce to enrich those

lands, which are flooded with it, more than river water.

3. Many arguments seem to shew, that calcareous earth contributes to the

nourishment of animals and vegetables. First because calcareous earth

constitutes a considerable part of them, and must therefore either be

received from without, or formed by them, or both, as milk, when taken as

food by a lactescent woman, is decomposed in the stomach by the process of

digestion, and again in part converted into milk by the pectoral glands.

Secondly, because from the analogy of all organic life, whatever has

composed a part of a vegetable or animal may again after its chemical

solution become a part of another vegetable or animal, such is the general

transmigration of matter. And thirdly, because the great use of lime in

agriculture on almost all kinds of soil and situation cannot be

satisfactorily explained from its chemical properties alone. Though these

may also in certain soils and situations have considerable effect.

The chemical uses of lime in agriculture may be, 1. from its destroying in

a short time the cohesion of dead vegetable fibres, and thus reducing them

to earth, which otherwise is effected by a slow process either by the

consumption of insects or by a gradual putrefaction. Thus I am informed

that a mixture of lime with oak bark, after the tanner has extracted from

it whatever is soluble in water, will in two or three months reduce it to a

fine black earth, which, if only laid in heaps, would require as many years

to effect by its own spontaneous fermentation or putrefaction. This effect

of lime must be particularly advantageous to newly inclosed commons when

first broken up.

Secondly, lime for many months continues to attract moisture from the air

or earth, which it deprives I suppose of carbonic acid, and then suffers it

to exhale again, as is seen on the plastered walls of new houses. On this

account it must be advantageous when mixed with dry or sandy soils, as it

attracts moisture from the air above or the earth beneath, and this

moisture is then absorbed by the lymphatics of the roots of vegetables.

Thirdly, by mixing lime with clays it is believed to make them less

cohesive, and thus to admit of their being more easily penetrated by

vegetable fibres. A mixture of lime with clays destroys their

superabundancy of acid, if such exists, and by uniting with it converts it

into gypsum or alabaster. And lastly, fresh lime destroys worms, snails,

and other insects, with which it happens to come in contact.

Yet do not all these chemical properties seem to account for the great uses

of lime in almost all soils and situations, as it contributes so much to

the melioration of the crops, as well as to their increase in quantity.

Wheat from land well limed is believed by farmers, millers, and bakers, to

be, as they suppose, thinner skinned; that is, it turns out more and better

flour; which I suppose is owing to its containing more starch and less

mucilage. In respect to grass-ground I am informed, that if a spadeful of

lime be thrown on a tussock, which horses or cattle have refused to touch

for years, they will for many succeeding seasons eat it quite close to the

ground.

One property of lime is not perhaps yet well understood, I mean its

producing so much heat, when it is mixed with water; which may be owing to

the elementary fluid of heat consolidated in the lime. It is the steam

occasioned by this heat, when water is sprinkled upon lime, if the water be

not in too great quantity or too cold, which breaks the lime into such fine

powder as almost to become fluid, which cannot be effected perhaps by any

other means, and which I suppose must give great preference to lime in

agriculture, and to the solutions of calcareous earth in water, over chalk

or powdered limestone, when spread upon the land.

4. It was formerly believed that waters replete with calcareous earth, such

as incrust the inside of tea-kettles, or are laid to petrify moss, were

liable to produce or to increase the stone in the bladder. This mistaken

idea has lately been exploded by the improved chemistry, as no calcareous

earth, or a very minute quantity, was found in the calculi analysed by

Scheel and Bergman. The waters of Matlock and of Carlsbad, both which cover

the moss, which they pass through, with a calcareous crust, are so far from

increasing the stone of the bladder or kidnies, that those of Carlsbad are

celebrated for giving relief to those labouring under these diseases.

Philos. Trans. Those of Matlock are drank in great quantities without any

suspicion of injury; and I well know a person who for above ten years has

drank about two pints a day of cold water from a spring, which very much

incrusts the vessels, it is boiled in, with calcareous earth, and affords a

copious calcareous sediment with a solution of salt of tartar, and who

enjoys a state of uninterrupted health.

V. 1. As animal bodies consist much both of oxygen and azote, which make up

the composition of atmospheric air, these should be counted amongst

nutritious substances. Besides that by the experiments of Dr. Priestley it

appears, that the oxygen gains admittance into the blood through the moist

membranes of the lungs; and seems to be of much more immediate consequence

to the preservation of our lives than the other kinds of nutriment above

specified.

As the basis of fixed air, or carbonic acid gas, is carbone, which also

constitutes a great part both of vegetable and animal bodies; this air

should likewise be reckoned amongst nutritive substances. Add to this, that

when this carbonic acid air is swallowed, as it escapes from beer or cyder,

or when water is charged with it as detruded from limestone by vitriolic

acid, it affords an agreeable sensation both to the palate and stomach, and

is therefore probably nutritive.

The immense quantity of carbone and of oxygen which constitute so great a

part of the limestone countries is almost beyond conception, and, as it has

been formed by animals, may again become a part of them, as well as the

calcareous matter with which they are united. Whence it may be conceived,

that the waters, which abound with limestone in solution, may supply

nutriment both to animals and to vegetables, as mentioned above.

VI. 1. The manner, in which nutritious particles are substituted in the

place of those, which are mechanically abraded, or chemically decomposed,

or which vanish by animal absorption, must be owing to animal appetency, as

described in Sect. XXXVII. 3. and is probably similar to the process of

inflammation, which produces new vessels and new fluids; or to that which

constitutes the growth of the body to maturity. Thus the granulations of

new flesh to repair the injuries of wounds are visible to the eye; as well

as the callous matter, which cements broken bones; the calcareous matter,

which repairs injured snail-shells; and the threads, which are formed by

silk-worms and spiders; which are all secreted in a softer state, and

harden by exsiccation, or by the contact of the air, or by absorption of

their more fluid parts.

Whether the materials, which thus supply the waste of the system, can be

given any other way than by the stomach, so as to preserve the body for a

length of time, is worth our inquiry; as cases sometimes occur, in which

food cannot be introduced into the stomach, as in obstructions of the

oesophagus, inflammations of the throat, or in hydrophobia; and other cases

are not unfrequent in which the power of digestion is nearly or totally

destroyed, as in anorexia epileptica, and in many fevers.

In the former of these circumstances liquid nutriment may sometimes be got

into the stomach through a flexible catheter; as described in Class III. 1.

1. 15. In the latter many kinds of mild aliment, as milk or broth, have

frequently been injected as clysters, together with a small quantity of

opium, as ten drops of the tincture, three or four times a day; to which

also might be added very small quantities of vinous spirit. But these, as

far as I have observed, will not long sustain a person, who cannot take any

sustenance by the stomach.

2. Another mode of applying nutritive fluids might be by extensive

fomentations, or by immerging the whole body in a bath of broth, or of warm

milk, which might at the same time be coagulated by rennet, or the acid of

the calf's stomach; broth or whey might thus probably be introduced, in

part at least, into the circulation, as a solution of nitre is said to have

been absorbed in a pediluvium, which was afterwards discovered by the

manner in which paper dipped frequently in the urine of the patient and

dried, burnt and sparkled like touch-paper. Great quantity of water is also

known to be absorbed by those, who have bathed in the warm bath after

exercise and abstinence from liquids. Cleopatra was said to travel with

4000 milch-asses in her train, and to bathe every morning in their milk,

which she probably might use as a cosmetic rather than a nutritive.

3. The transfusion of blood from another animal into the vein of one, who

could take no sustenance by the throat, or digest none by the stomach,

might long continue to support him; and perhaps other nutriment, as milk or

mucilage, might be this way introduced into the system, but we have not yet

sufficient experiments on this subject. See Sect. XXXII. 4. and Class I. 2.

3. 25. and Sup. I. 14. 2.

VII. Various kinds of condiments, or sauces, have been taken along with

vegetable or animal food, and have been thought by some to strengthen the

process of digestion and consequent process of nutrition. Of these wine, or

other fermented liquors, vinegar, salt, spices, and mustard, have been in

most common use, and I believe to the injury of thousands. As the stomach

by their violent stimulus at length loses its natural degree of

irritability, and indigestion is the consequence; which is attended with

flatulency and emaciation. Where any of these have been taken so long as to

induce a habit, they must either be continued, but not increased; or the

use of them should be gradually and cautiously diminished or discontinued,

as directed in Sect. XII. 7. 8.

III. CATALOGUE OF THE NUTRIENTIA.

I. 1. Venison, beef, mutton, hare, goose, duck, woodcock, snipe,

moor-game.

2. Oysters, lobsters, crabs, shrimps, mushrooms, eel, tench, barbolt,

smelt, turbot, sole, turtle.

3. Lamb, veal, sucking-pig.

4. Turkey, partridge, pheasant, fowl, eggs.

5. Pike, perch, gudgeon, trout, grayling.

II. Milk, cream, butter, buttermilk, whey, cheese.

III. Wheat, barley, oats, peas, potatoes, turnips, carrots, cabbage,

asparagus, artichoke, spinach, beet, apple, pear, plum, apricot,

nectarine, peach, strawberry, grape, orange, melon, cucumber, dried

figs, raisins, sugar, honey. With a great variety of other roots,

seeds, leaves, and fruits.

IV. Water, river-water, spring-water, calcareous earth.

V. Air, oxygene, azote, carbonic acid gas.

VI. Nutritive baths and clysters, transfusion of blood.

VII. Condiments.

* * * * *

ART. II.

INCITANTIA.

I. 1. Those things, which increase the exertions of all the irritative

motions, are termed incitantia. As alcohol, or the spirituous part of

fermented liquors, opium, and many drugs, which are still esteemed poisons,

their proper doses not being ascertained. To these should be added the

exhilarating passions of the mind, as joy, love: and externally the

application of heat, electricity, aether, essential oils, friction, and

exercise.

2. These promote both the secretions and absorptions, increase the natural

heat, and remove those pains, which originate from the defect of irritative

motions, termed nervous pains; and prevent the convulsions consequent to

them. When given internally they induce costiveness, and deep coloured

urine; and by a greater dose intoxication, and its consequences.

II. OBSERVATIONS ON THE INCITANTIA.

I. 1. Opium and alcohol increase all the secretions and absorptions. The

increase of the secretion of sensorial power appears from the violent

exertions of drunken people; the secretion of sweat is more certainly

excited by opium or wine than by any other medicine; and the increase of

general heat, which these drugs produce, is an evidence of their effect in

promoting all the secretions; since an increase of secretion is always

attended with increase of heat in the part, as in hepatic and other

inflammations.

2. But as they at the same time promote absorption; those fluids, which are

secreted into receptacles, as the urine, bile, intestinal and pulmonary

mucus, have again their thinner parts absorbed; and hence, though the

quantity of secreted fluid was increased, yet as the absorption was also

increased, the excretion from these receptacles is lessened; at the same

time that it is deeper coloured or of thicker consistence, as the urine,

alvine feces, and pulmonary mucus. Whereas the perspiration being secreted

on the surface of the body is visible in its increased quantity, before it

can be reabsorbed; whence arises that erroneous opinion, that opium

increases the cutaneous secretion, and lessens all the others.

3. It must however be noted, that after evacuations opium seems to promote

the absorptions more than the secretions; if you except that of the

sensorial power in the brain, which probably suffers no absorption. Hence

its efficacy in restraining haemorrhages, after the vessels are emptied, by

promoting venous absorption.

4. In ulcers the matter is thickened by the exhibition of opium from the

increased absorption of the thinner parts of it; but it is probable, that

the whole secretion, including the part which is absorbed, is increased;

and hence new fibres are secreted along with the matter, and the ulcer

fills with new granulations of flesh. But as no ulcer can heal, till it

ceases to discharge; that is, till the absorption becomes as great as the

excretion; those medicines, which promote absorption only, are more

advantageous for the healing an ulcer after it is filled with new flesh; as

the Peruvian bark internally; with bandages and solutions of lead

externally.

5. There are many pains which originate from a want of due motion in the

part, as those occasioned by cold; and all those pains which are attended

with cold extremities, and are generally termed nervous. These are relieved

by whatever excites the part into its proper actions, and hence by opium

and alcohol; which are the most universal stimulants we are acquainted

with. In these cases the effect of opium is produced, as soon as the body

becomes generally warm; and a degree of intoxication or sleep follows the

cessation of the pain.

These nervous pains (as they are called) frequently return at certain

periods of time, and are also frequently succeeded by convulsions; in these

cases if opium removes the pain, the convulsions do not come on. For this

purpose it is best to exhibit it gradually, as a grain every hour, or half

hour, till it intoxicates. Here it must be noted, that a much less quantity

will prevent the periods of these cold pains, than is necessary to relieve

them after their access. As a grain and half of opium given an hour before

the expected paroxysm will prevent the cold fit of an intermittent fever,

but will not soon remove it, when it is already formed. For in the former

case the usual or healthy associations or catenations of motion favour the

effect of the medicine; in the latter case these associations or

catenations are disordered, or interrupted, and new ones are formed, which

so far counteract the effect of the medicine.

When opium has been required in large doses to ease or prevent convulsions,

some have advised the patient to omit the use of wine, as a greater

quantity of opium might then be exhibited; and as opium seems to increase

absorption more, and secretion less, than vinous spirit; it may in some

cases be useful to exchange one for the other; as in diseases attended with

too great evacuation, as diarrhoea, and dysentery, opium may be preferable;

on the contrary in tetanus, or locked-jaw, where inflammation of the system

might be of service, wine may be preferable to opium; see Class III. 1. 1.

13. I have generally observed, that a mixture of spirit of wine and warm

water, given alternately with the doses of opium, has soonest and most

certainly produced that degree of intoxication, which was necessary to

relieve the patient in the epilepsia dolorifica.

6. There is likewise some relief given by opium to inflammatory pains, or

those from excess of motion in the affected part; but with this difference,

that this relief from the pains, and the sleep, which it occasions, does

not occur till some hours after the exhibition of the opium. This requires

to be explained; after the stimulus of opium or of alcohol ceases, as after

common drunkenness, a consequent torpor comes on; and the whole habit

becomes less irritable by the natural stimuli. Hence the head-achs,

sickness, and languor, on the next day after intoxication, with cold skin,

and general debility. Now in pains from excess of motion, called

inflammatory pains, when opium is given, the pain is not relieved, till the

debility comes on after the stimulus ceases to act; for then after the

greater stimulus of the opium has exhausted much of the sensorial power;

the less stimulus, which before caused the pain, does not now excite the

part into unnatural action.

In these cases the stimulus of the opium first increases the pain; and it

sometimes happens, that so great a torpor follows, as to produce the death

or mortification of the affected part; whence the danger of giving opium in

inflammatory diseases, especially in inflammation of the bowels; but in

general the pain returns with its former violence, when the torpor above

mentioned ceases. Hence these pains attended with inflammation are best

relieved by copious venesection, other evacuations, and the class of

medicines called torpentia.

7. These pains from excess of motion are attended with increased heat of

the whole, or of the affected part, and a strong quick pulse; the pains

from defect of motion are attended with cold extremities, and a weak pulse;

which is also generally more frequent than natural, but not always so.

8. Opium and alcohol are the only two drugs, we are much acquainted with,

which intoxicate; and by this circumstance are easily distinguished from

the secernentia and sorbentia. Camphor, and cicuta, and nicotiana, are

thought to induce a kind of intoxication; and there are many other drugs of

this class, whose effects are less known, or their doses not ascertained;

as atropa belladonna, hyocyamus, stramonium, prunus laurocerasus,

menispermum, cynoglossum, some fungi, and the water distilled from black

cherry-stones; the last of which was once much in use for the convulsions

of children, and was said to have good effect; but is now improvidently

left out of our pharmacopias. I have known one leaf of the laurocerasus,

shred and made into tea, given every morning for a week with no ill

consequence to a weak hysteric lady, but rather perhaps with advantage.

9. The pernicious effects of a continued use of much vinous spirit is daily

seen and lamented by physicians; not only early debility, like premature

age, but a dreadful catalogue of diseases is induced by this kind of

intemperance; as dropsy, gout, leprosy, epilepsy, insanity, as described in

Botanic Garden, Part II. Canto III. line 357. The stronger or less diluted

the spirit is taken, the sooner it seems to destroy, as in dram-drinkers;

but still sooner, when kernels of apricots, or bitter almonds, or

laurel-leaf, are infused in the spirit, which is termed ratafia; as then

two poisons are swallowed at the same time. And vinegar, as it contains

much vinous spirit, is probably a noxious part of our diet. And the

distilled vinegar, which is commonly sold in the shops, is truly poisonous,

as it is generally distilled by means of a pewter or leaden alembic-head or

worm-tube, and abounds with lead; which any one may detect by mixing with

it a solution of liver of sulphur. Opium, when taken as a luxury, not as a

medicine, is as pernicious as alcohol; as Baron de Tott relates in his

account of the opium-eaters in Turkey.

10. It must be observed, that a frequent repetition of the use of this

class of medicines so habituates the body to their stimulus, that their

dose may gradually be increased to an astonishing quantity, such as

otherwise would instantly destroy life; as is frequently seen in those, who

accustom themselves to the daily use of alcohol and opium; and it would

seem, that these unfortunate people become diseased as soon as they omit

their usual potations; and that the consequent gout, dropsy, palsy, or

pimpled face, occur from the debility occasioned from the want of

accustomed stimulus, or to some change in the contractile fibres, which

requires the continuance or increase of it. Whence the cautions necessary

to be observed are mentioned in Sect. XII. 7. 8.

11. It is probable, that some of the articles in the subsequent catalogue

do not induce intoxication, though they have been esteemed to do so; as

tobacco, hemlock, nux vomica, stavisagria; and on this account should

rather belong to other arrangements, as to the secernentia, or sorbentia,

or invertentia.

II. 1. Externally the application of heat, as the warm bath, by its

stimulus on the skin excites the excretory ducts of the perspirative

glands, and the mouths of the lymphatics, which open on its surface, into

greater action; and in consequence many other irritative motions, which are

associated with them. To this increased action is added pleasurable

sensation, which adds further activity to the system; and thus many kinds

of pain receive relief from this additional atmosphere of heat.

The use of a warm bath of about 96 or 98 degrees of heat, for half an hour

once a day for three or four months, I have known of great service to weak

people, and is perhaps the least noxious of all unnatural stimuli; which

however, like all other great excitement, may be carried to excess, as

complained of by the ancients. The unmeaning application of the words

relaxation and bracing to warm and cold baths has much prevented the use of

this grateful stimulus; and the misuse of the term warm-bath, when applied

to baths colder than the body, as to those of Buxton and Matlock, and to

artificial baths of less than 90 degrees of heat, which ought to be termed

cold ones, has contributed to mislead the unwary in their application.

The stimulus of wine, or spice, or salt, increases the heat of the system

by increasing all or some of the secretions; and hence the strength is

diminished afterwards by the loss of fluids, as well as by the increased

action of the fibres. But the stimulus of the warm-bath supplies heat

rather than produces it; and rather fills the system by increased

absorption, than empties it by increased secretion; and may hence be

employed with advantage in almost all cases of debility with cold

extremities, perhaps even in anasarca, and at the approach of death in

fevers. In these cases a bath much beneath 98 degrees, as of 80 or 85,

might do injury, as being a cold-bath compared with the heat of the body,

though such a bath is generally called a warm one.

The activity of the system thus produced by a bath of 98 degrees of heat,

or upwards, does not seem to render the patients liable to take cold, when

they come out of it; for the system is less inclined to become torpid than

before, as the warmth thus acquired by communication, rather than by

increased action, continues long without any consequent chillness. Which

accords with the observation of Dr. Fordyce, mentioned in Sup. I. 5. 1. who

says, that those who are confined some time in an atmosphere of 120 or 130

degrees of heat, do not feel cold or look pale on coming into a temperature

of 30 or 40 degrees; which would produce great paleness and sensation of

coldness in those, who had been some time confined in an atmosphere of only

86 or 90 degrees of heat. Treatise on Simple Fever, p. 168.

Hence heat, where it can be confined on a torpid part along with moisture,

as on a scrophulous tumour, will contribute to produce suppuration or

resolution. This is done by applying a warm poultice, which should be

frequently repeated; or a plaster of resin, wax, or fat; or by covering the

part with oiled silk; both which last prevent the perspirable matter from

escaping as well as the heat of the part, as these substances repel

moisture, and are bad conductors of heat. Another great use of the stimulus

of heat is by applying it to torpid ulcers, which are generally termed

scrophulous or scorbutic, and are much easier inclined to heal, when

covered with several folds of flannel.

Mr. ---- had for many months been afflicted with an ulcer in perinaeo,

which communicated with the urethra, through which a part of his urine was

daily evacuated with considerable pain; and was reduced to a great degree

of debility. He used a hot-bath of 96 or 98 degrees of heat every day for

half an hour during about six months. By this agreeable stimulus repeated

thus at uniform times not only the ulcer healed, contrary to the

expectation of his friends, but he acquired greater health and strength,

than he had for some years previously experienced.

Mrs. ---- was affected with transient pains, which were called nervous

spasms, and with great fear of diseases, which she did not labour under,

with cold extremities, and general debility. She used a hot-bath every

other day of 96 degrees of heat for about four months, and recovered a good

state of health, with greater strength and courage, than she had possessed

for many months before.

Mr. Z. a gentleman about 65 years of age, who had lived rather

intemperately in respect to vinous potation, and had for many years had

annual visits of the gout, which now became irregular, and he appeared to

be losing his strength, and beginning to feel the effects of age. He used a

bath, as hot as was agreeable to his sensations, twice a week for about a

year and half, and greatly recovered his health and strength with less

frequent and less violent returns of regular gout, and is now near 80 years

of age.

When Dr. Franklin, the American philosopher, was in England many years ago,

I recommended to him the use of a warm-bath twice a week to prevent the too

speedy access of old age, which he then thought that he felt the approach

of, and I have been informed, that he continued the use of it till near his

death, which was at an advanced age.

All these patients were advised not to keep themselves warmer than their

usual habits, after they came out of the bath, whether they went into bed

or not; as the design was not to promote perspiration, which weakens all

constitutions, and seldom is of service to any. Thus a flannel shirt,

particularly if it be worn in warm weather, occasions weakness by

stimulating the skin by its points into too great action, and producing

heat in consequence; and occasions emaciation by increasing the discharge

of perspirable matter; and in both these respects differs from the effect

of warm bathing, which communicates heat to the system at the same time

that it stimulates it, and causes absorption more than exhalation.

2. The effect of the passage of an electric shock through a paralytic limb

in causing it to contract, besides the late experiments of Galvani and

Volta on frogs, intitle it to be classed amongst universal stimulants.

Electric shocks frequently repeated daily for a week or two remove

chronical pains, as the pleurodyne chronica, Class I. 2. 4. 14. and other

chronic pains, which are termed rheumatic, probably by promoting the

absorption of some extravasated material. Scrophulous tumours are sometimes

absorbed, and sometimes brought to suppurate by passing electric shocks

through them daily for two or three weeks.

[Illustration]

Miss ----, a young lady about eight years of age, had a swelling about the

size of a pigeon's egg on her neck a little below her ear, which long

continued in an indolent state. Thirty or forty small electric shocks were

passed through it once or twice a day for two or three weeks, and it then

suppurated and healed without difficulty. For this operation the coated jar

of the electric machine had on its top an electrometer, which measured the

shocks by the approach of a brass knob, which communicated with the

external coating to another, which communicated with the internal one, and

their distance was adjusted by a screw. So that the shocks were so small as

not to alarm the child, and the accumulated electricity was frequently

discharged, as the wheel continued turning. The tumour was inclosed between

two other brass knobs, which were fixed on wires, which passed through

glass tubes, the tubes were cemented in two grooves on a board, so that at

one end they were nearer each other than at the other, and the knobs were

pushed out so far as exactly to include the tumour, as described in the

annexed plate, which is about half the size of the original apparatus.

Inflammations of the eyes without fever are frequently cured by taking a

stream of very small electric sparks from them, or giving the electric

sparks to them, once or twice a day for a week or two; that is, the new

vessels, which constitute inflammation in these inirritable constitutions,

are absorbed by the activity of the absorbents induced by the stimulus of

the electric aura. For this operation the easiest method is to fix a

pointed wire to a stick of sealing wax, or to an insulating handle of

glass, one end of this wire communicates with the prime conductor, and the

point is approached near the inflamed eye in every direction.

III. Externally the application of ether, and of essential oils, as of

cloves or cinnamon, seem to possess a general stimulating effect. As they

instantly relieve tooth-ach, and hiccough, when these pains are not in

violent degree; and camphor in large doses is said to produce intoxication;

this effect however I have not been witness to, and have reason to doubt.

The manner in which ether and the essential oil operate on the system when

applied externally, is a curious question, as pain is so immediately

relieved by them, that they must seem to penetrate by the great fluidity or

expansive property of a part of them, as of their odoriferous exhalation or

vapour, and that they thus stimulate the torpid part, and not by their

being taken up by the absorbent vessels, and carried thither by the long

course of circulation; nor is it probable, that these pains are relieved by

the sympathy of the torpid membrane with the external skin, which is thus

stimulated into action; as it does not succeed, unless it is applied over

the pained part. Thus there appears to be three different modes by which

extraneous bodies may be introduced into the system, besides that of

absorption. 1st. By ethereal transition, as heat and electricity; 2d. by

chemical attraction, as oxygen; and 3d. by expansive vapour, as ether and

essential oils.

IV. The perpetual necessity of the mixture of oxygen gas with the blood in

the lungs evinces, that it must act as a stimulus to the sanguiferous

system, as the motions of the heart and arteries presently cease, when

animals are immersed in airs which possess no oxygen. It may also

subsequently answer another important purpose, as it probably affords the

material for the production of the sensorial power; which is supposed to be

secreted in the brain or medullary part of the nerves; and that the

perpetual demand of this fluid in respiration is occasioned by the

sensorial power, which is supposed to be produced from it, being too subtle

to be long confined in any part of the system.

Another proof of the stimulant quality of oxygen appears from the increased

acrimony, which the matter of a common abscess possesses, after it has been

exposed to the air of the atmosphere, but not before; and probably all

other contagious matters owe their fever-producing property to having been

converted into acids by their union with oxygen.

As oxygen penetrates the fine moist membranes of the air-vessels of the

lungs, and unites with the blood by a chemical attraction, as is seen to

happen, when blood is drawn into a bason, the lower surface of the

crassamentum is of a very dark red so long as it is covered from the air by

the upper surface, but becomes florid in a short time on its being exposed

to the atmosphere; the manner of its introduction into the system is not

probably by animal absorption but by chemical attraction, in which

circumstance it differs from the fluids before mentioned both of heat and

electricity, and of ether and essential oils.

As oxygen has the property of passing through moist animal membranes, as

first discovered by the great Dr. Priestley, it is probable it might be of

use in vibices, and petechiae in fevers, and in other bruises; if the skin

over those parts was kept moist by warm water, and covered with oxygen gas

by means of an inverted glass, or even by exposing the parts thus moistened

to the atmosphere, as the dark coloured extravasated blood might thus

become florid, and by its increase of stimulus facilitate its reabsorption.

Two weak patients, to whom I gave oxygen gas in as pure a state as it can

easily be procured from Exeter manganese, and in the quantity of about four

gallons a day, seemed to feel refreshed, and stronger, and to look better

immediately after respiring it, and gained strength in a short time. Two

others, one of whom laboured under confirmed hydrothorax, and the other

under a permanent and uniform difficulty of respiration, were not

refreshed, or in any way served by the use of oxygen in the above quantity

of four gallons a day for a fortnight, which I ascribed to the

inirritability of the diseased lungs. For other cases the reader is

referred to the publications of Dr. Beddoes; Confederations on the Use of

Factitious Airs, sold by Johnson, London.

Its effects would probably have been greater in respect to the quantity

breathed, if it had been given in a dilute state, mixed with 10 or 20 times

its quantity of atmospheric air, as otherwise much of it returns by

expiration without being deprived of its quality, as may be seen by the

person breathing on the flame of a candle, which it enlarges. See the

Treatise of Dr. Beddoes above mentioned.

V. Those passions, which are attended with pleasurable sensation, excite

the system into increased action in consequence of that sensation, as joy,

and love, as is seen by the flush of the skin. Those passions, which are

attended with disagreeable sensation, produce torpor in general by the

expence of sensorial power occasioned by inactive pain; unless volition be

excited in consequence of the painful sensation; and in that case an

increased activity of the system occurs; thus paleness and coldness are the

consequence of fear, but warmth and redness are the consequence of anger.

VI. Besides the exertions of the system occasioned by increased stimuli,

and consequent irritation, and by the passions of the mind above described,

the increased actions occasioned by exercise belong to this article. These

may be divided into the actions of the body in consequence of volition,

which is generally termed labour; or secondly, in consequence of agreeable

sensation, which is termed play or sport; thirdly, the exercise occasioned

by agitation, as in a carriage or on horseback; fourthly, that of friction,

as with a brush or hand, so much used in the baths of Turkey; and lastly,

the exercise of swinging.

The first of these modes of exercise is frequently carried to great excess

even amongst our own labourers, and more so under the lash of slavery; so

that the body becomes emaciated and sinks under either the present

hardships, or by a premature old age. The second mode of exercise is seen

in the play of all young animals, as kittens, and puppies, and children;

and is so necessary to their health as well as to their pleasure, that

those children, which are too much confined from it, not only become

pale-faced and bloated, with tumid bellies, and consequent worms, but are

liable to get habits of unnatural actions, as twitching of their limbs, or

of some parts of their countenance; together with an ill-humoured or

discontented mind.

Agitation in a carriage or on horseback, as it requires some little

voluntary exertion to preserve the body perpendicular, but much less

voluntary exertion than in walking, seems the best adapted to invalids; who

by these means obtain exercise principally by the strength of the horse,

and do not therefore too much exhaust their own sensorial power. The use of

friction with a brush or hand, for half an hour or longer morning and

evening, is still better adapted to those, who are reduced to extreme

debility; and none of their own sensorial power is thus expended, and

affords somewhat like the warm-bath activity without self-exertion, and is

used as a luxury after warm bathing in many parts of Asia.

Another kind of exercise is that of swinging, which requires some exertion

to keep the body perpendicular, or pointing towards the center of the

swing, but is at the same time attended with a degree of vertigo; and is

described in Class II. 1. 6. 7. IV. 2. 1. 10. Sup. I. 3. and 15.

The necessity of much exercise has perhaps been more insisted upon by

physicians, than nature seems to demand. Few animals exercise themselves so

as to induce visible sweat, unless urged to it by mankind, or by fear, or

hunger. And numbers of people in our market towns, of ladies particularly,

with small fortunes, live to old age in health, without any kind of

exercise of body, or much activity of mind.

In summer weak people cannot continue too long in the air, if it can be

done without fatigue; and in winter they should go out several times in a

day for a few minutes, using the cold air like a cold-bath, to invigorate

and render them more hardy.

III. CATALOGUE OF THE INCITANTIA.

I. Papaver somniferum; poppy, opium.

Alcohol, wine, beer, cyder.

Prunus lauro-cerasus; laurel, distilled water from the leaves.

Prunus cerasus; black cherry, distilled water from the kernels.

Nicotiana tabacum; tobacco? the essential oil, decoction of the leaf.

Atropa belladona; deadly nightshade, the berries.

Datura stramoneum; thorn-apple, the fruit boiled in milk.

Hyoscyamus reticulatus; henbane, the seeds and leaves.

Cynoglossum; hounds tongue.

Menispermum, cocculus; Indian berry.

Amygdalus amarus; bitter almond.

Cicuta; hemlock. Conium maculatum?

Strychnos nux vomica?

Delphinium stavisagria?

II. Externally, heat, electricity.

III. Ether, essential oils.

IV. Oxygen gas.

V. Passions of love, joy, anger.

VI. Labour, play, agitation, friction.

* * * * *

ART. III.

SECERNENTIA.

I. Those things which increase the irritative motions, which constitute

secretion, are termed secernentia; which are as various as the glands,

which they stimulate into action.

1. Diaphoretics, as aromatic vegetables, essential oils, ether, volatile

alcali, neutral salts, antimonial preparations, external heat, exercise,

friction, cold water for a time with subsequent warmth, blisters, electric

fluid.

2. Sialagogues, as mercury internally, and pyrethrum externally.

3. Expectorants, as squill, onions, gum ammoniac, seneka root, mucilage:

some of these increase the pulmonary perspiration, and perhaps the

pulmonary mucus.

4. Diuretics, as neutral salts, fixed alcali, balsams, resins, asparagus,

cantharides.

5. Cathartics of the mild kind, as sena, jalap, neutral salts, manna. They

increase the secretions of bile, pancreatic juice, and intestinal mucus.

6. The mucus of the bladder is increased by cantharides, and perhaps by oil

of turpentine.

7. The mucus of the rectum by aloe internally, by clysters and

suppositories externally.

8. The mucus of the cellular membrane is increased by blisters and

sinapisms.

9. The mucus of the nostrils is increased by errhines of the milder kind,

as marum, common snuff.

10. The secretion of tears is increased by volatile salts, the vapour of

onions, by grief, and joy.

11. All those medicines increase the heat of the body, and remove those

pains, which originate from a defect of motion in the vessels, which

perform secretion; as pepper produces a glow on the skin, and balsam of

Peru is said to relieve the flatulent cholic. But these medicines differ

from the preceding class, as they neither induce costiveness nor deep

coloured urine in their usual dose, nor intoxication in any dose.

12. Yet if any of these are used unnecessarily, it is obvious, like the

incitantia, that they must contribute to shorten our lives by sooner

rendering peculiar parts of the system disobedient to their natural

stimuli. Of those in daily use the great excess of common salt is probably

the most pernicious, as it enters all our cookery, and is probably one

cause of scrophula, and of sea-scurvy, when joined with other causes of

debility. See Botanic Garden, Part II. Canto IV. line 221. Spices taken to

excess by stimulating the stomach, and the vessels of the skin by

association, into unnecessary action, contribute to weaken these parts of

the system, but are probably less noxious than the general use of so much

salt.

II. OBSERVATIONS ON THE SECERNENTIA.

I. 1. Some of the medicines of this class produce absorption in some

degree, though their principal effect is exerted on the secerning part of

our system. We shall have occasion to observe a similar circumstance in the

next class of medicines termed Sorbentia; as of these some exert their

effects in a smaller degree on the secerning system. Nor will this surprise

any one, who has observed, that all natural objects are presented to us in

a state of combination; and that hence the materials, which produce these

different effects, are frequently found mingled in the same vegetable. Thus

the pure aromatics increase the action of the vessels, which secrete the

perspirable matter; and the pure astringents increase the action of the

vessels, which absorb the mucus from the lungs, and other cavities of the

body; hence it must happen, that nutmeg, which possesses both these

qualities, should have the double effect above mentioned.

Other drugs have this double effect, and belong either to the class of

Secernentia or Sorbentia, according to the dose in which they are

exhibited. Thus a small dose of alum increases absorption, and induces

costiveness; and a large one increases the secretions into the intestinal

canal, and becomes cathartic. And this accounts for the constipation of the

belly left after the purgative quality of rhubarb ceases, for it increases

absorption in a smaller dose, and secretion in a greater. Hence when a part

of the larger dose is carried out of the habit by stools, the small

quantity which remains induces costiveness. Hence rhubarb exhibited in

small doses, as 2 or 3 grains twice a day, strengthens the system by

increasing the action of the absorbent vessels, and of the intestinal

canal.

2. Diaphoretics. The perspiration is a secretion from the blood in its

passage through the capillary vessels, as other secretions are produced in

the termination of the arteries in the various glands. After this secretion

the blood loses its florid colour, which it regains in its passage through

the lungs; which evinces that something besides water is secreted on the

skins of animals.

No statical experiments can ascertain the quantity of our perspiration; as

a continued absorption of the moisture of the atmosphere exists at the same

time both by the cutaneous and pulmonary lymphatics.

3. Every gland is capable of being excited into greater exertions by an

appropriated stimulus applied either by its mixture with the blood

immediately to the secerning vessel, or applied externally to its excretory

duct. Thus mercury internally promotes an increased salivation, and

pyrethrum externally applied to the excretory ducts of the salival glands.

Aloes stimulate the rectum internally mixed with the circulating blood; and

sea-salt by injection externally. Now as the capillaries, which secrete the

perspirable matter, lie near the surface of the body, the application of

external heat acts immediately on their excretory ducts, and promotes

perspiration; internally those drugs which possess a fragrant essential

oil, or spiritus rector, produce this effect, as the aromatic vegetables,

of which the number is very great.

4. It must be remembered, that a due quantity of some aqueous vehicle must

be given to support this evacuation; otherwise a burning heat without much

visible sweat must be the consequence. When the skin acquires a degree of

heat much above 108, as appears by Dr. Alexander's experiments, no visible

sweat is produced; which is owing to the great heat of the skin evaporating

it as hastily, as it is secreted; and, where the sweat is secreted in

abundance, its evaporation cannot carry off the exuberant heat, like the

vapour of boiling water; because a great part of it is wiped off, or

absorbed by the bed-clothes; or the air about the patient is not changed

sufficiently often, as it becomes saturated with the perspirable matter.

And hence it is probable, that the waste of perspirable matter is as great,

or greater, when the skin is hot and dry, as when it stands in drops on the

skin; as appears from the inextinguishable thirst.

Hence Dr. Alexander found, that when the heat of the body was greater than

108, nothing produced sweats but repeated draughts of cold water; and of

warm fluids, when the heat was much below that degree. And that cold water

which procured sweats instantaneously when the heat was above 108, stopped

them as certainly when it was below that heat; and that flannels, wrung out

of warm water and wrapped round the legs and thighs, were then most

certainly productive of sweats.

5. The diaphoretics are all said to succeed much better, if given early in

the morning, about an hour before sun-rise, than at any other time; which

is owing to the great excitability of every part of the system after the

sensorial power has been accumulated during sleep. In those, who have

hectic fever, or the febricula, or nocturnal fever of debility, the morning

sweats are owing to the decline of the fever-fit, as explained in Sect.

XXXII. 9. In some of these patients the sweat does not occur till they

awake; because then the system is still more excitable than during sleep,

because the assistance of the voluntary power in respiration facilitates

the general circulation. See Class I. 2. 1. 3.

6. It must be observed, that the skin is very dry and hard to the touch,

where the absorbents, which open on its surface, do not act; as in some

dropsies, and other diseases attended with great thirst. This dryness, and

shrivelled appearance, and roughness, are owing to the mouths of the

absorbents being empty of their accustomed fluid, and is distinguishable

from the dryness of the skin above mentioned in the hot fits of fever, by

its not being attended with heat.

As the heat of the skin in the usual temperature of the air always evinces

an increased perspiration, whether visible or not, the heat being produced

along with the increase of secretion; it follows, that a defect of

perspiration can only exist, when the skin is cold.

7. Volatile alcali is a very powerful diaphoretic, and particularly if

exhibited in wine-whey; 20 drops of spirit of hartshorn every half hour in

half a pint of wine-whey, if the patient be kept in a moderately warm bed,

will in a few hours elicit most profuse sweats.

Neutral salts promote invisible perspiration, when the skin is not warmed

much externally, as is evinced from the great thirst, which succeeds a meal

of salt provisions, as of red herrings. When these are sufficiently diluted

with water, and the skin kept warm, copious sweats without inflaming the

habit, are the consequence. Half an ounce of vinegar saturated with

volatile alcali, taken every hour or two hours, well answers this purpose;

and is preferable perhaps in general to all others, where sweating is

advantageous. Boerhaave mentions one cured of a fever by eating

red-herrings or anchovies, which, with repeated draughts of warm water or

tea, would I suppose produce copious perspiration.

Antimonial preparations have also been of late much used with great

advantage as diaphoretics. For the history and use of these preparations I

shall refer the reader to the late writers on the Materia Medica, only

observing that the stomach becomes so soon habituated to its stimulus, that

the second dose may be considerably increased, if the first had no

operation.

Where it is advisable to procure copious sweats, the emetics, as

ipecacuanha, joined with opiates, as in Dover's powder, produce this effect

with greater certainty than the above.

8. We must not dismiss this subject without observing, that perspiration is

designed to keep the skin flexile, as the tears are intended to clean and

lubricate the eye; and that neither of these fluids can be considered as

excretions in their natural state, but as secretions. See Class I. 1. 2. 3.

And that therefore the principal use of diaphoretic medicines is to warm

the skin, and thence in consequence to produce the natural degree of

insensible perspiration in languid habits.

9. When the skin of the extremities is cold, which is always a sign of

present debility, the digestion becomes frequently impaired by association,

and cardialgia or heartburn is induced from the vinous or acetous

fermentation of the aliment. In this disease diaphoretics, which have been

called cordials, by their action on the stomach restore its exertion, and

that of the cutaneous capillaries by their association with it, and the

skin becomes warm, and the digestion more vigorous.

10. But a blister acts with more permanent and certain effect by

stimulating a part of the skin, and thence affecting the whole of it, and

of the stomach by association, and thence removes the most obstinate

heartburns and vomitings. From this the principal use of blisters is

understood, which is to invigorate the exertions of the arterial and

lymphatic vessels of the skin, producing an increase of insensible

perspiration, and of cutaneous absorption; and to increase the action of

the stomach, and the consequent power of digestion; and thence by sympathy

to excite all the other irritative motions: hence they relieve pains of the

cold kind, which originate from defect of motion; not from their

introducing a greater pain, as some have imagined, but by stimulating the

torpid vessels into their usual action; and thence increasing the action

and consequent warmth of the whole skin, and of all the parts which are

associated with it.

II. 1. _Sialagogues._ The preparations of mercury consist of a solution or

corrosion of that metal by some acid; and, when the dose is known, it is

probable that they are all equally efficacious. As their principal use is

in the cure of the venereal disease, they will be mentioned in the

catalogue amongst the sorbentia. Where salivation is intended, it is much

forwarded by a warm room and warm clothes; and prevented by exposing the

patient to his usual habits of cool air and dress, as the mercury is then

more liable to go off by the bowels.

2. Any acrid drug, as pyrethrum, held in the mouth acts as a sialagogue

externally by stimulating the excretory ducts of the salivary glands; and

the siliqua hirsuta applied externally to the parotid gland, and even hard

substances in the ear, are said to have the same effect. Mastich chewed in

the mouth emulges the salivary glands.

3. The unwise custom of chewing and smoking tobacco for many hours in a day

not only injures the salivary glands, producing dryness in the mouth when

this drug is not used, but I suspect that it also produces schirrhus of the

pancreas. The use of tobacco in this immoderate degree injures the power of

digestion, by occasioning the patient to spit out that saliva, which he

ought to swallow; and hence produces that flatulency, which the vulgar

unfortunately take it to prevent. The mucus, which is brought from the

fauces by hawking, should be spit out, as well as that coughed up from the

lungs; but that which comes spontaneously into the mouth from the salivary

glands, should be swallowed mixed with our food or alone for the purposes

of digestion. See Class I. 2. 2. 7.

III. 1. Expectorants are supposed to increase the secretion of mucus in the

branches of the windpipe, or to increase the perspiration of the lungs

secreted at the terminations of the bronchial artery.

2. If any thing promotes expectoration toward the end of peripneumonies,

when the inflammation is reduced by bleeding and gentle cathartics, small

repeated blisters about the chest, with tepid aqueous and mucilaginous or

oily liquids, are more advantageous than the medicines generally enumerated

under this head; the blisters by stimulating into action the vessels of the

skin produce by association a greater activity of those of the mucous

membrane, which lines the branches of the windpipe, and air-cells of the

lungs; and thus after evacuation they promote the absorption of the mucus

and consequent healing of the inflamed membrane, while the diluting liquids

prevent this mucus from becoming too viscid for this purpose, or facilitate

its expuition.

Blisters, one at a time, on the sides or back, or on the sternum, are also

useful towards the end of peripneumonies, by preventing the evening access

of cold fit, and thence preventing the hot fit by their stimulus on the

skin; in the same manner as five drops of laudanum by its stimulus on the

stomach. For the increased actions of the vessels of the skin or stomach

excite a greater quantity of the sensorial power of association, and thus

prevent the torpor of the other parts of the system; which, when patients

are debilitated, is so liable to return in the evening.

3. Warm bathing is of great service towards the end of peripneumony to

promote expectoration, especially in those children who drink too little

aqueous fluids, as it gently increases the action of the pulmonary

capillaries by their content with the cutaneous ones, and supplies the

system with aqueous fluid, and thus dilutes the secreted mucus.

Some have recommended oil externally around the chest, as well as

internally, to promote expectoration; and upon the nose, when its mucous

membrane is inflamed, as in common catarrh.

IV. 1. Diuretics. If the skin be kept warm, most of these medicines promote

sweat instead of urine; and if their dose is enlarged, most of them become

cathartic. Hence the neutral salts are used in general for all these

purposes. Those indeed, which are composed of the vegetable acid, are most

generally used as sudorifics; those with the nitrous acid as diuretics; and

those with the vitriolic acid as cathartics: while those united with the

marine acid enter our common nutriment, as a more general stimulus. All

these increase the acrimony of the urine, hence it is retained a less time

in the bladder; and in consequence less of it is reabsorbed into the

system, and the apparent quantity is greater, as more is evacuated from the

bladder; but it is not certain from thence, that a greater quantity is

secreted by the kidnies. Hence nitre, and other neutral salts, are

erroneously given in the gonorrhoea; as they augment the pain of making

water by their stimulus on the excoriated or inflamed urethra. They are

also erroneously given in catarrhs or coughs, where the discharge is too

thin and saline, as they increase the frequency of coughing.

2. Balsam of Copaiva is thought to promote urine more than the other native

balsams; and common resin is said to act as a powerful diuretic in horses.

These are also much recommended in gleets, and in fluor albus, perhaps more

than they deserve; they give a violet smell to the urine, and hence

probably increase the secretion of it.

Calcined egg-shells are said to promote urine, perhaps from the phosphoric

acid they contain.

3. Cold air and cold water will increase the quantity of urine by

decreasing the absorption from the bladder; and neutral and alcalious salts

and cantharides by stimulating the neck of the bladder to discharge the

urine as soon as secreted; and alcohol as gin and rum at the beginning of

intoxication, if the body be kept cool, occasion much urine by inverting

the urinary lymphatics, and thence pouring a fluid into the bladder, which

never passed the kidnies. But it is probable, that those medicines, which

give a scent to the urine as the balsams and resins, but particularly

asparagus and garlic, are the only drugs, which truly increase the

secretion of the kidnies. Alcohol however, used as above mentioned, and

perhaps great doses of tincture of cantharides, may be considered as

drastic diuretics, as they pour a fluid into the bladder by the retrograde

action of the lymphatics, which are in great abundance spread about the

neck of it. See Sect. XXIX. 3.

V. Mild cathartics. The ancients believed that some purges evacuated the

bile, and hence were termed Cholagogues; others the lymph, and were termed

Hydragogues; and that in most each cathartic selected a peculiar humour,

which it discharged. The moderns have too hastily rejected this system; the

subject well deserves further observation.

Calomel given in the dose from ten to twenty grains, so as to induce

purging without the assistance of other drugs, appears to me to

particularly increase the secretion of bile, and to evacuate it; aloe seems

to increase the secretion of the intestinal mucus; and it is probable that

the pancreas and spleen may be peculiarly stimulated into action by some

other of this tribe of medicines; whilst others of them may simply

stimulate the intestinal canal to evacuate its contents, as the bile of

animals. It must be remarked, that all these cathartic medicines are

supposed to be exhibited in their usual doses, otherwise they become

drastic purges, and are treated of in the Class of Invertentia.

VI. The mucus of the bladder is seen in the urine, when cantharides have

been used, either internally or externally, in such doses as to induce the

strangury. Spirit of turpentine is said to have the same effect. I have

given above a dram of it twice a day floating on a glass of water in

chronic lumbago without this effect, and the patient gradually recovered.

VII. Aloe given internally seems to act chiefly on the rectum and, spincter

ani, producing tenesmus and piles. Externally in clysters or suppositories,

common salt seems to act on that bowel with greater certainty. But where

the thread-worm or ascarides exist, 60 or 100 grains of aloes reduced to

powder and boiled in a pint of gruel, and used as a clyster twice a week

for three months, has frequently destroyed them.

VIII. The external application of cantharides by stimulating the excretory

ducts of the capillary glands produces a great secretion of subcutaneous

mucus with pain and inflammation; which mucaginous fluid, not being able to

permeate the cuticle, raises it up; a similar secretion and elevation of

the cuticle is produced by actual fire; and by caustic materials, as by the

application of the juice of the root of white briony, or bruised

mustard-seed. Experiments are wanting to introduce some acrid application

into practice instead of cantharides, which might not induce the strangury.

Mustard-seed alone is too acrid, and if it be suffered to lie on the skin

many minutes is liable to produce a slough and consequent ulcer, and should

therefore be mixed with flour when applied to cold extremities. Volatile

alkali properly diluted might stimulate the skin without inducing

strangury.

IX. The mild errhines are such as moderately stimulate the membrane of the

nostrils, so as to increase the secretion of nasal mucus; as is seen in

those, who are habituated to take snuff. The stronger errhines are

mentioned in Art. V. 2. 3.

X. The secretion of tears is increased either by applying acrid substances

to the eye; or acrid vapours, which stimulate the excretory duct of the

lacrymal gland; or by applying them to the nostrils, and stimulating the

excretory duct of the lacrymal sack, as treated of in the Section on

Instinct.

Or the secretion of tears is increased by the association of the motions of

the excretory duct of the lacrymal sack with ideas of tender pleasure, or

of hopeless distress, as explained in Sect. XVI. 8. 2. and 3.

XI. The secretion of sensorial power in the brain is probably increased by

opium or wine, because when taken in certain quantity an immediate increase

of strength and activity succeeds for a time, with consequent debility if

the quantity taken be so great as to intoxicate in the least degree. The

necessity of perpetual respiration shews, that the oxygen of the atmosphere

supplies the source of the spirit of animation; which is constantly

expended, and is probably too fine to be long contained in the nerves after

its production in the brain. Whence it is probable, that the respiration of

oxygen gas mixed with common air may increase the secretion of sensorial

power; as indeed would appear from its exhilarating effect on most

patients.

III. CATALOGUE OF THE SECERNENTIA.

I. Diaphoretics.

1. Amomum zinziber, ginger. Caryophyllus aromaticus, cloves. Piper

indicum, pepper. Capsicum. Cardamomum. Pimento, myrtus pimenta. Canella

alba. Serpentaria virginiana, aristolochia serpentaria, guaiacum.

Sassafras, laurus sassafras. Opium. Wine.

2. Essential oils of cinnamon, laurus cinnamomum. Nutmeg, myristica

moschata. Cloves, caryophyllus aromaticus. Mint, mentha. Camphor,

laurus camphora. Ether.

3. Volatile salts, as of ammoniac and of hartshorn. Sal cornu cervi.

4. Neutral salts, as those with vegetable acid; or with marine acid, as

common salt. Halex. Red-herring, anchovy.

5. Preparations of antimony, as emetic tartar, antimonium tartarizatum,

wine of antimony. James's powder.

6. External applications. Blisters. Warm bath. Warm air. Exercise.

Friction.

7. Cold water with subsequent warmth.

II. Sialagogues. Preparations of mercury, hydrargyrus. Pyrethrum, anthemis

pyrethrum, tobacco, cloves, pepper, cowhage, stizolobium siliqua hirsuta.

Mastich, pistacia lentiscus.

III. Expectorants:

1. Squill, scilla maritima, garlic, leek, onion, allium, asafoetida,

ferula asafoetida, gum ammoniac, benzoin, tar, pix liquida, balsam of

Tolu.

2. Root of seneka, polygala seneka, of elicampane, inula helenium.

3. Marsh-mallow, althaea, coltsfoot, tussilago farfara, gum arabic,

mimosa nilotica, gum tragacanth, astragalus tragacantha. Decoction of

barley, hordeum distichon. Expressed oils. Spermaceti, soap. Extract of

liquorice, glycyrrhiza glabra. Sugar. Honey.

4. Externally blisters. Oil. Warm bath.

IV. Mild diuretics.

1. Nitre, kali acetatum, other neutral salts.

2. Fixed alkali, soap, calcined egg-shells.

3. Turpentine. Balsam of Copaiva. Resin. Olibanum.

4. Asparagus, garlic, wild daucus. Parsley, apium. Fennel faeniculum,

pareira brava, Cissampelos?

5. Externally cold air, cold water.

6. Alcohol. Tincture of cantharides. Opium.

V. Mild cathartics.

1. Sweet subacid fruits. Prunes, prunus domestica. Cassia sistula.

Tamarinds, crystals of tartar, unrefined sugar. Manna. Honey.

2. Whey of milk, bile of animals.

3. Neutral salts, as Glauber's salt, vitriolated tartar, sea-water,

magnesia alba, soap.

4. Gum guaiacum. Balsam of Peru. Oleum ricini, castor-oil, oil of

almonds, oil of olives, sulphur.

5. Senna, cassia senna, jalap, aloe, rhubarb, rheum palmatum.

6. Calomel. Emetic tartar, antimonium tartarizatum.

VI. Secretion of mucus of the bladder is increased by cantharides, by

spirit of turpentine?

VII. Secretion of mucus of the rectum is increased by aloe internally, by

various clysters and suppositories externally.

VIII. Secretion of subcutaneous mucus is increased by blisters of

cantharides, by application of a thin slice of the fresh root of white

briony, by sinapisms, by root of horse-radish, cochlearia armoracia.

Volatile alcali.

IX. Mild errhines. Marjoram. Origanum. Marum, tobacco.

X. Secretion of tears is increased by vapour of sliced onion, of volatile

alcali. By pity, or ideas of hopeless distress.

XI. Secretion of sensorial power in the brain is probably increased by

opium, by wine, and perhaps by oxygen gas added to the common air in

respiration.

* * * * *

ART. IV.

SORBENTIA.

I. Those things which increase the irritative motions, which constitute

absorption, are termed sorbentia; and are as various as the absorbent

vessels, which they stimulate into action.

1. Cutaneous absorption is increased by austere acids, as of vitriol; hence

they are believed to check colliquative sweats, and to check the eruption

of small-pox, and contribute to the cure of the itch, and tinea; hence they

thicken the saliva in the mouth, as lemon-juice, crab-juice, sloes.

2. Absorption from the mucous membrane is increased by opium, and Peruvian

bark, internally; and by blue vitriol externally. Hence the expectoration

in coughs, and the mucous discharge from the urethra, are thickened and

lessened.

3. Absorption from the cellular membrane is promoted by bitter vegetables,

and by emetics, and cathartics. Hence matter is thickened and lessened in

ulcers by opium and Peruvian bark; and serum is absorbed in anasarca by the

operation of emetics and cathartics.

4. Venous absorption is increased by acrid vegetables; as water-cress,

cellery, horse-radish, mustard. Hence their use in sea-scurvy, the vibices

of which are owing to a defect of venous absorption; and by external

stimulants, as vinegar, and by electricity, and perhaps by oxygen.

5. Intestinal absorption is increased by astringent vegetables, as rhubarb,

galls; and by earthy salts, as alum; and by argillaceous and calcareous

earth.

6. Hepatic absorption is increased by metallic salts, hence calomel and sal

martis are so efficacious in jaundice, worms, chlorosis, dropsy.

7. Venereal virus in ulcers is absorbed by the stimulus of mercury; hence

they heal by the use of this medicine.

8. Venesection, hunger, thirst, and violent evacuations, increase all

absorptions; hence sweating produces costiveness.

9. Externally bitter astringent vegetables, earthy and metallic salts, and

bandages, promote the absorption of the parts on which they are applied.

10. All these in their usual doses do not increase the natural heat; but

they induce costiveness, and deep coloured urine with earthy sediment.

In greater doses they invert the motions of the stomach and lacteals; and

hence vomit or purge, as carduus benedictus, rhubarb. They promote

perspiration, if the skin be kept warm; as camomile tea, and testaceous

powders, have been used as sudorifics.

The preparations of antimony vomit, purge, or sweat, either according to

the quantity exhibited, or as a part of what is given is evacuated. Thus a

quarter of a grain of emetic tartar (if well prepared) will promote a

diaphoresis, if the skin be kept warm; half a grain will procure a stool or

two first, and sweating afterwards; and a grain will generally vomit, and

then purge, and lastly sweat the patient. In less quantity it is probable,

that this medicine acts like other metallic salts, as steel, zinc, or

copper in small doses; that is, that it strengthens the system by its

stimulus. As camomile or rhubarb in different doses vomit, or purge, or act

as stimulants so as to strengthen the system.

II. OBSERVATIONS ON THE SORBENTIA.

I. 1. As there is great difference in the apparent structure of the various

glands, and of the fluids which they select from the blood, these glands

must possess different kinds of irritability, and are therefore stimulated

into stronger or unnatural actions by different articles of the materia

medica, as shewn in the secernentia. Now as the absorbent vessels are

likewise glands, and drink up or select different fluids, as chyle, water,

mucus, with a part of every different secretion, as a part of the bile, a

part of the saliva, a part of the urine, &c. it appears, that these

absorbent vessels must likewise possess different kinds of irritability,

and in consequence must require different articles of the materia medica to

excite them into unusual action. This part of the subject has been so

little attended to, that the candid reader will find in this article a

great deal to excuse.

It was observed, that some of the secernentia did in a less degree increase

absorption, from the combination of different properties in the same

vegetable body; for the same reason some of the class of sorbentia produce

secretion in a less degree, as those bitters which have also an aroma in

their composition; these are known from their increasing the heat of the

system above its usual degree.

It must also be noted, that the actions of every part of the absorbent

system are so associated with each other, that the drugs which stimulate

one branch increase the action of the whole; and the torpor or quiescence

of one branch weakens the exertions of the whole; or when one branch is

excited into stronger action, some other branch has its actions weakened or

inverted. Yet though peculiar branches of the absorbent system are

stimulated into action by peculiar substances, there are other substances

which seem to stimulate the whole system, and that without immediately

increasing any of the secretions; as those bitters which possess no

aromatic scent, at the head of which stands the famed Peruvian bark, or

cinchona.

2. Cutaneous absorption. I have heard of some experiments, in which the

body was kept cold, and was thought to absorb more moisture from the

atmosphere than at any other time. This however cannot be determined by

statical experiments; as the capillary vessels, which secrete the

perspirable matter, must at the same time have been benumbed by the cold;

and from their inaction there could not have been the usual waste of the

weight of the body; and as all other muscular exertions are best performed,

when the body possesses its usual degree of warmth, it is conclusive, that

the absorbent system should likewise do its office best, when it is not

benumbed by external cold.

The austere acids, as of vitriol, lemon-juice, juice of crabs and sloes,

strengthen digestion, and prevent that propensity to sweat so usual to weak

convalescents, and diminish the colliquative sweats in hectic fevers; all

which are owing to their increasing the action of the external and internal

cutaneous absorption. Hence vitriolic acid is given in the small-pox to

prevent the too hasty or too copious eruption, which it effects, by

increasing the cutaneous absorption. Vinegar, from the quantity of alcohol

which it contains, exerts a contrary effect to that here described, and

belongs to the incitantia; as an ounce of it promotes sweat, and a flushing

of the skin; at the same time externally it acts as a venous absorbent, as

the lips become pale by moistening them with it. And it is said, when taken

internally in great and continued quantity, to induce paleness of the skin,

and softness of the bones.

The sweet vegetable acids, as of several ripe fruits, are among the

torpentia; as they are less stimulating than the general food of this

climate, and are hence used in inflammatory diseases.

Where the quantity of fluids in the system is much lessened, as in hectic

fever, which has been of some continuance, or in spurious peripneumony, a

grain of opium given at night will sometimes prevent the appearance of

sweats; which is owing to the stimulus of opium increasing the actions of

the cutaneous absorbents, more than those of the secerning vessels of the

skin. Whence the secretion of perspirable matter is not decreased, but its

appearance on the skin is prevented by its more facile absorption.

3. There is one kind of itch, which seldom appears between the fingers, is

the least infectious, and most difficult to eradicate, and which has its

cure much facilitated by the internal use of acid of vitriol. This disease

consists of small ulcers in the skin, which are healed by whatever

increases the cutaneous absorption. The external application of sulphur,

mercury, and acrid vegetables, acts on the same principle; for the

animalcula, which are seen in these pustules, are the effect, not the

cause, of them; as all other stagnating animal fluids, as the semen itself,

abounds with similar microscopic animals.

4. Young children have sometimes an eruption upon the head called Tinea,

which discharges an acrimonius ichor inflaming the parts, on which it

falls. This eruption I have seen submit to the internal use of vitriolic

acid, when only wheat-flour was applied externally. This kind of eruption

is likewise frequently cured by testaceous powders; two materials so widely

different in their chemical properties, but agreeing in their power of

promoting cutaneous absorption.

II. Absorption from the mucous membrane is increased by applying to its

surface the austere acids, as of vitriol, lemon-juice, crab-juice, sloes.

When these are taken into the mouth, they immediately thicken, and at the

same time lessen the quantity of the saliva; which last circumstance cannot

be owing to their coagulating the saliva, but to their increasing the

absorption of the thinner parts of it. So alum applied to the tip of the

tongue does not stop in its action there, but independent of its diffusion

it induces cohesion and corrugation over the whole mouth. (Cullen's Mat.

Med. Art. Astringentia.) Which is owing to the association of the motions

of the parts or branches of the absorbent system with each other.

Absorption from the mucous membrane is increased by opium taken internally

in small doses more than by any other medicine, as is seen in its

thickening the expectoration in coughs, and the discharge from the nostrils

in catarrh, and perhaps the discharge from the urethra in gonorrhoea. The

bark seems next in power for all these purposes.

Externally slight solutions of blue vitriol, as two or three grains to an

ounce of water, applied to ulcers of the mouth, or to chancres on the glans

penis, more powerfully induces them to heal than any other material.

Where the lungs or urethra are inflamed to a considerable degree, and the

absorption is so great, that the mucus is already too thick, and adheres to

the membrane from its viscidity, opiates and bitter vegetable and austere

acids are improper; and mucilaginous diluents should be used in their stead

with venesection and torpentia.

III. 1. Absorption from the cellular membrane, and from all the other

cavities of the body, is too slowly performed in some constitutions; hence

the bloated pale complexion; and when this occurs in its greatest degree,

it becomes an universal dropsy. These habits are liable to intermittent

fevers, hysteric paroxysms, cold extremities, indigestion, and all the

symptoms of debility.

The absorbent system is more subject to torpor or quiescence than the

secerning system, both from the coldness of the fluids which are applied to

it, as the moisture of the atmosphere, and from the coldness of the fluids

which we drink; and also from its being stimulated only by intervals, as

when we take our food; whereas the secerning system is perpetually excited

into action by the warm circulating blood; as explained in Sect. XXXII.

2. The Peruvian bark, camomile flowers, and other bitter drugs, by

stimulating this cellular branch of the absorbent system prevents it from

becoming quiescent; hence the cold paroxysms of those agues, which arise

from the torpor of the cellular lymphatics, are prevented, and the hot fits

in consequence. The patient thence preserves his natural heat, regains his

healthy colour, and his accustomed strength.

Where the cold paroxysm of an ague originates in the absorbents of the

liver, spleen, or other internal viscus, the addition of steel to vegetable

bitters, and especially after the use of one dose of calomel, much advances

the cure.

And where it originates in any part of the secerning system, as is probably

the case in some kinds of agues, the addition of opium in the dose of a

grain and half, given about an hour before the access of the paroxysm, or

mixed with chalybeate and bitter medicines, ensures the cure. Or the same

may be effected by wine given instead of opium before the paroxysm, so as

nearly to intoxicate.

These three kinds of agues are thus distinguished; the first is not

attended with any tumid or indurated viscus, which the people call an ague

cake, and which is evident to the touch. The second is accompanied with a

tumid viscus; and the last has generally, I believe, the quartan type, and

is attended with some degree of arterial debility.

3. This class of absorbent medicines are said to decrease irritability.

After any part of our system has been torpid or quiescent, by whatever

cause that was produced, it becomes afterwards capable of being excited

into greater motion by small stimuli; hence the hot fit of fever succeeds

the cold one. As these medicines prevent torpor or quiescence of parts of

the system, as cold hands or feet, which perpetually happen to weak

constitutions, the subsequent increase of irritability of these parts is

likewise prevented.

4. These absorbent medicines, including both the bitters, and metallic

salts, and opiates, are of great use in the dropsy by their promoting

universal absorption; but here evacuations are likewise to be produced, as

will be treated of in the Invertentia.

5. The matter in ulcers is thickened, and thence rendered less corrosive,

the saline part of it being reabsorbed by the use of bitter medicines;

hence the bark is used with advantage in the cure of ulcers.

6. Bitter medicines strengthen digestion by promoting the absorption of

chyle; hence the introduction of hop into the potation used at our meals,

which as a medicine may be taken advantageously, but, like other

unnecessary stimuli, must be injurious as an article of our daily diet.

The hop may perhaps in some degree contribute to the production of gravel

in the kidnies, as our intemperate wine-drinkers are more subject to the

gout, and ale-drinkers to the gravel; in the formation of both which

diseases, there can be no doubt, but that the alcohol is the principal, if

not the only agent.

7. Vomits greatly increase the absorption from the cellular membrane, as

squill, and foxglove. The squill should be given in the dose of a grain of

the dried root every hour, till it operates upwards and downwards. Four

ounces of the fresh leaves of the foxglove should be boiled from two pounds

of water to one, and half an ounce of the decoction taken every two hours

for four or more doses. This medicine by stimulating into inverted action

the absorbents of the stomach, increases the direct action of the cellular

lymphatics.

Another more convenient way of ascertaining the dose of foxglove is by

making a saturated tincture of it in proof spirit; which has the twofold

advantage of being invariable in its original strength, and of keeping a

long time as a shop-medicine without losing any of its virtue. Put two

ounces of the leaves of purple foxglove, digitalis purpurea, nicely dried,

and coarsely powdered, into a mixture of four ounces of rectified spirit of

wine and four ounces of water; let the mixture stand by the fire-side

twenty-four hours frequently shaking the bottle, and thus making a

saturated tincture of digitalis; which must be poured from the sediment or

passed through filtering paper.

As the size of a drop is greater or less according to the size of the rim

of the phial from which it is dropped, a part of this saturated tincture is

then directed to be put into a two-ounce phial, for the purpose of

ascertaining the size of the drop. Thirty drops of this tincture is

directed to be put into an ounce of mint-water for a draught to be taken

twice or thrice a day, till it reduces the anasarca of the limbs, or

removes the difficulty of breathing in hydrothorax, or till it induces

sickness. And if these do not occur in two or three days, the dose must be

gradually increased to forty or sixty drops, or further.

From the great stimulus of this medicine the stomach is rendered torpid

with consequent sickness, which continues many hours and even days, owing

to the great exhaustion of its sensorial power of irritation; and the

action of the heart and arteries becomes feeble from the deficient

excitement of the sensorial power of association; and lastly, the

absorbents of the cellular membrane act more violently in consequence of

the accumulation of the sensorial power of association in the torpid heart

and arteries, as explained in Suppl. I. 12.

A circumstance curiously similar to this occurs to some people on smoking

tobacco for a short time, who have not been accustomed to it. A degree of

sickness is presently induced, and the pulsations of the heart and arteries

become feeble for a short time, as in the approach to fainting, owing to

the direct sympathy between these and the stomach, that is from defect of

the excitement of the power of association. Then there succeeds a tingling,

and heat, and sometimes sweat, owing to the increased action of the

capillaries, or perspirative and mucous glands; which is occasioned by the

accumulation of the sensorial power of association by the weaker action of

the heart and arteries, which now increases the action of the capillaries.

8. Another method of increasing absorption from the cellular membrane is by

warm air, or by warm steam. If the swelled legs of a dropsical patient are

inclosed in a box, the air of which is made warm by a lamp or two, copious

sweats are soon produced by the increased action of the capillary glands,

which are seen to stand on the skin, as it cannot readily exhale in so

small a quantity of air, which is only changed so fast as may be necessary

to permit the lamps to burn. At the same time the lymphatics of the

cellular membrane are stimulated by the heat into greater action, as

appears by the speedy reduction of the tumid legs.

It would be well worth trying an experiment upon a person labouring under a

general anasarca by putting him into a room filled with air heated to 120

or 130 degrees, which would probably excite a great general diaphoresis,

and a general cellular absorption both from the lungs and every other part.

And that air of so great heat may be borne for many minutes without great

inconvenience was shewn by the experiments made in heated rooms by Dr.

Fordyce and others. Philos. Trans.

Another experiment of using warmth in anasarca, or in other diseases, might

be by immersing the patient in warm air, or in warm steam, received into an

oil-skin bag, or bathing-tub of tin, so managed, that the current of warm

air or steam should pass round and cover the whole of the body except the

head, which might not be exposed to it; and thus the absorbents of the

lungs might be induced to act more powerfully by sympathy with the skin,

and not by the stimulus of heat. See Uses of Warm Bath, Art. II. 2. 2. 1.

IV. 1. Venous absorption. Cellary, water-cresses, cabbages, and many other

vegetables of the Class Tetradynamia, do not increase the heat of the body

(except those whose acrimony approaches to corrosion), and hence they seem

alone, or principally, to act on the venous system; the extremities of

which we have shewn are absorbents of the red blood, after it has passed

the capillaries and glands.

2. In the sea-scurvy and petechial fever the veins do not perfectly perform

this office of absorption; and hence the vibices are occasioned by blood

stagnating at their extremities, or extravasated into the cellular

membrane. And this class of vegetables, stimulating the veins to perform

their natural absorption, without increasing the energy of the arterial

action, prevents future petechiae, and may assist the absorption of the

blood already stagnated, as soon as its chemical change renders it proper

for that operation.

3. The fluids, which are extravasated, and received into the cells of the

cellular membrane, seem to continue there for many days, so as to undergo

some chemical change, and are then taken up again by the mouths of the

cellular absorbents. But the new vessels produced in inflamed parts, as

they communicate with the veins, are probably absorbed again by the veins

along with the blood which they contain in their cavities. Hence the blood,

which is extravasated in bruises or vibices, is gradually many days in

disappearing; but after due evacuations the inflamed vessels on the white

of the eye, if any stimulant lotion is applied, totally disappear in a few

hours.

Amongst absorbents affecting the veins we should therefore add the external

application of stimulant materials; as of vinegar, which makes the lips

pale on touching them. Friction, and electricity.

4. Haemorrhages are of two kinds, either arterial, which are attended with

inflammation; or venous, from a deficiency in the absorbent power of this

set of vessels. In the former case the torpentia are efficacious; in the

latter steel, opium, alum, and all the tribe of sorbentia, are used with

success.

5. Sydenham recommends vegetables of the class Tetradynamia in rheumatic

pains left after the cure of intermittents. These pains are perhaps similar

to those of the sea-scurvy, and seem to arise from want of absorption in

the affected part, and hence are relieved by the same medicines.

V. 1. Intestinal absorption. Some astringent vegetables, as rhubarb, may be

given in such doses as to prove cathartic; and, after a part of it is

evacuated from the body, the remaining part augments the absorption of the

intestines; and acts, as if a similar dose had been exhibited after the

operation of any other purgative. Hence 4 grains of rhubarb strengthen the

bowels, 30 grains first empty them.

2. The earthy salts, as alum, increase the intestinal absorption, and hence

induce constipation in their usual dose; alum is said sometimes to cure

intermittents, perhaps when their seat is in the intestines, when other

remedies have failed. It is useful in the diabaetes by exciting the

absorbents of the bladder into their natural action; and combined with

resin is esteemed in the fluor albus, and in gleets. Lime-stone or chalk,

and probably gypsum, possess effects in some degree similar, and increase

the absorption of the intestines; and thus in certain doses restrain some

diarrhoeas, but in greater doses alum I suppose will act as a cathartic.

Five or ten grains produce constipation, 20 or 30 grains are either emetic

or cathartic.

3. Earth of alum, tobacco-pipe clay, marl, Armenian bole, lime, crab's eyes

or claws, and calcined hartshorn, or bone ashes, restrain fluxes; either

mechanically by supplying something like mucilage, or oil, or rollers to

abate the friction of the aliment over inflamed membranes; or by increasing

their absorption. The two last consist of calcareous earth united to

phosphoric acid, and the Armenian bole and marl may contain iron. By the

consent between the intestines and the skin 20 grains of Armenian bole

given at going into bed to hectic patients will frequently check their

tendency to sweat as well as to purge, and the more certainly if joined

with one grain of opium.

VI. 1. Absorption from the liver, stomach, and other viscera. When

inflammations of the liver are subdued to a certain degree by venesection,

with calomel and other gentle purges, so that the arterial energy becomes

weakened, four or eight grains of iron-filings, or of salt of steel, with

the Peruvian bark, have wonderful effect in curing the cough, and restoring

the liver to its usual size and sanity; which it seems to effect by

increasing the absorption of this viscus. The same I suppose happens in

respect to the tumours of other viscera, as of the spleen, or pancreas,

some of which are frequently enlarged in agues.

2. Haemorrhages from the nose, rectum, kidnies, uterus, and other parts,

are frequently attendant on diseased livers; the blood being impeded in the

vena portarum from the decreased power of absorption, and in consequence of

the increased size of this viscus. These haemorrhages after venesection,

and a mercurial cathartic, are most certainly restrained by steel alone, or

joined with an opiate; which increase the absorption, and diminish the size

of the liver.

Chalybeates may also restrain these haemorrhages by their promoting venous

absorption, though they exert their principal effect upon the liver. Hence

also opiates, and bitters, and vitriolic acid, are advantageously used

along with them. It must be added that some haemorrhages recur by periods

like the paroxysms of intermittent fevers, and are thence cured by the same

treatment.

3. The jaundice is frequently caused by the insipidity of the bile, which

does not stimulate the gall-bladder and bile-ducts into their due action;

hence it stagnates in the gall-bladder, and produces a kind of

crystallization, which is too large to pass into the intestines, blocks up

the bile-duct, and occasions a long and painful disease. A paralysis of the

bile duct produces a similar jaundice, but without pain.

4. Worms in sheep called flukes are owing to the dilute state of the bile;

hence they originate in the intestines, and thence migrate into the biliary

ducts, and corroding the liver produce ulcers, cough, and hectic fever,

called the rot. In human bodies it is probable the inert state of the bile

is one cause of the production of worms; which insipid state of the bile is

owing to deficient absorption of the thinner parts of it; hence the pale

and bloated complexion, and swelled upper lip, of wormy children, is owing

to the concomitant deficiency of absorption from the cellular membrane.

Salt of steel, or the rust of it, or filings of it, with bitters, increase

the acrimony of the bile by promoting the absorption of its aqueous part;

and hence destroy worms, as well as by their immediate action on the

intestines, or on the worms themselves. The cure is facilitated by

premising a purge with calomel. See Class I. 2. 3. 9.