are often very beneficial.

Laudanum is uniformly hurtful, by checking expectoration. The foxglove, by diminishing the vital powers, is, in the advanced state of this disease, a dangerous remedy; having, in many instances, occasioned sudden death.

The diet should be light and nutritious; for at the period of life in which it occurs, the system is not so easily nourished as at an earlier age. When paucity of urine takes place, a beverage of weak gin and water will be the best.

Practical Remarks on Consumption of the Lungs.-The disease of the lungs producing emaciation of body, or consumption, is of four kinds; two seated in the substance of the lungs, viz. one from partial depositions of scrofulous lymph in the cellular substance of the lungs, termed scrofulous pulmonary consumption, and the other from the formation of parasites, termed tubercles, which putrefy; and this distinction is of great importance, on account of the treatment applicable to one being inapplicable to the other: the seat of the third is the membrane lining the windpipe and its branches, which is of a scrofulous erysipelatous nature; and the last arises from ossification of arteries, and morbid irritation of the membrane of the bronchial ramification, occurring in elderly subjects. The nutrient vessels of the lungs being small, do not possess the same power of removing diseased structure as in other parts of the body. The chemical process going on in the lungs of decarbonising the blood, and the dilatation and contraction during respiration, are very unfavourable for the process of healing; and, on these accounts, scrofulous disease in the substance of the lungs, when advanced to suppuration, generally terminates fatally. It is in the early stage of the scrofulous variety that remedies are likely to succeed in restoring the patient to health. The application of a rubefacient to the chest, on the commencement of the membranous and scrofulous variety, is necessary. The diet should consist of vegetables well boiled, with a small proportion of animal food under-done. All stimulants, or spices, should be avoided in the food, except in the tubercular variety, or when the patient is far advanced in life, when the moderate use of a spice, and an increased proportion of meat, are often very proper. The exercise should be gentle, and flannel should be worn next the skin. In the erysipelatous species, the treatment does not materially differ from that recommended for the scrofulous species, except the addition of Sassafras Balsam, which corrects the secretion of the membrane of the windpipe and its branches. The treatment of the consumption of advanced age must be regulated by the state of the system. Steel and other tonic medicines are necessary in this species, especially when great debility of body is indicated by swelling of the legs, &c., and also in the advanced stage of the tubercular variety. (See BALSAMICS,

p. 17. PRUSSIC ACID, p. 164. OXYMEL OF HEDGE HYSSOP, p. 150. ALTERATIVES, p. 3.)

OF CORNS. Corns consist in a hard thickening of the skin, in consequence of pressure. They are probably formed in the following manner. The cuticle, first rendered thick by pressure, is by continuance of the cause forced into the true skin, and the thickening process being kept up, the accumulation increases, and is forced deeper into the skin. The surface, by the degree of pressure being increased, gradually extends, so that the substance termed "Corn" becomes of a conical form. TREATMENT. The callous substance, after having been immersed in warm water for about half an hour, should be nearly removed by a knife, and the remaining callous part rasped off by a fine file, and the part afterwards covered with the Discutient Plaster (C), p. 130, or Anodyne Plaster (B), p. 129, spread on soft leather. If neither of these can be obtained, the Diachylon Plaster may be employed. The occasional cause should be avoided, by wearing easy shoes. When the corn is situated at the bottom of the foot, its recurrence may be prevented (after its removal as above directed), by the use of the horse-hair socks, the elasticity of which will obviate the effect of pressure on walking.

Plasters of verdigris and the red precipitate of mercury have been much recommended for the removal of corns, and for alleviating their pain. From their caustic property, they may have a good effect; but from this quality they may also irritate and aggravate the pain.

In the Monthly Gazette of Health, a correspondent recommends a piece of raw beef of the size of a crown to be applied over the corn, during the night, which, in the course of one week, he states, will effect a cure. The corny substance should be removed by a knife or rasp as it becomes soft.

OF COSTIVENESS. There is no complaint more general, especially among females, or a more frequent precursor of disease, than costiveness. In this country it is often a predisposing, and not unfrequently an exciting, cause of the diseases that terminate the lives of more than one half of its inhabitants. With females, constipation is often constitutional; and, judging from the good state of the general health, and the debilitating effects of an evacuation daily, and of the operation of a gentle aperient medicine, it appears that some peculiar constitutions require a fæcal evacuation only twice a week. In all cases of disease it is of great importance to ascertain whether the patient be constitutionally subject to confined bowels; for on such patients an active purgative medicine will have a much more debilitating effect than on one whose bowels are relieved every day. Indeed, on some delicate subjects, who are constitutionally costive. I

have known a second dose of an aperient medicine produce a most alarming degree of general debility. It is, therefore, of consequence to ascertain in diseases, especially those which terminate unfavourably, by rapidly inducing debility, if the confined state of the bowels be constitutional, or has any thing to do in producing them, or in favouring their progress. The effects of a dose of a gentle aperient medicine in reducing the vital powers of an individual, whose habit is naturally costive, will point out the great absurdity of laying down a general rule for relieving the bowels every day, as that by Mr. Abernethy, or of administering active purgative medicines in a great variety of diseases, as recommended by Dr. Hamilton. It is very common for young ladies, especially at boarding-schools, in perfect health, not to have their bowels relieved oftener than once a week; and in the records of medicine, both of the ancients and moderns, many remarkable cases of confined bowels appear. Rhodius gives a case of retention of fæces for upwards of a month, and Panarolus one of three months' standing, which, he says, was not attended with the slightest disturbance of the general health, or inconvenience to the individual. The late Dr. Baillie published a case of costiveness of fifteen weeks' standing; and Chaptal gives an incredible case of a female, who for four months had no discharge either from the bowels or kidneys, and very little by what is termed sensible perspiration, notwithstanding her diet consisted of broths and whey. The state of bowels in this case was attributed to excessive insensible perspiration; but it is probable the separation of carbon from the blood, during respiration, was also in excess. * Although a confined state of the bowels, even for several days, is not necessarily a disease, it is, at certain periods of life, inimical to health, by bringing a constitutional disease into action, and by rendering the system susceptible of unfavourable changes in the atmosphere, or of the action of any baneful effluvium or contagion that may be in it. In females, at the age of fourteen, it is of great consequence to keep up a healthy circulation in the abdominal viscera; for if they be allowed to continue in a state of sluggishness, the determination of blood will not take place to the uterus, so as to produce its monthly secretion, on which their general health greatly depends. In consequence of retention of the menses, a determination often takes place to the lungs, which, if neglected, will insidiously lay the foundation of incurable organic disease. In females, at the important period of life when the uterus ceases to perform its monthly office, if the bowels be

⚫ By a recent calculation made by the scientific chemist Mr. Pepys, it appears nearly five pounds of carbon is conveyed from the lungs, in the course of twenty-four hours.

allowed to continue torpid, a determination of blocd will take place to the brain, so as to produce apoplexy; or to the lungs, so as to occasion pulmonary consumption; or a deposit in the substance of the uterus, which will lay the foundation of the most distressing disease to which the female is liable. In males, after the age of fifty, when venous plethora prevails, if the action of the bowels be not kept up, and the circulation of the blood promoted through them, the sinuses and veins of the brain will become so loaded as to occasion apoplexy.

The importance of keeping up a certain degree of excitement in the abdominal viscera, at those periods of life when mischief in the lungs or in the brain is apt to occur, from partial congestion, must appear obvious to every person capable of reflection; but this is not to be accomplished solely by purgatives; for, as I have stated above, constipation is often constitutional, and not dependant on a want of energy, but on some peculiar state of body, which will not admit of frequent evacuations; and in those cases which are dependant on sluggishness of the intestines, &c., purgative medicines are not so necessary as a stimulating stomachic, and other means which are capable of promoting the circulation through the abdominal viscera, as friction over the bowels, flannel next the skin, horse exercise, dancing, &c., and such internal stimulating medicines which increase the irritability of the muscular coat of the intestinal canal; to which may be added the powerful agent, electricity or galvanism, which act immediately on the muscular coat and glands of the intestines. The costiveness of robust people, whose digestion is perfect, may rather be attributed to the quantity or quality of the bile, than to an increased action of the absorbent vessels of the intestines, as stated by Dr. Good; and as to violent exercise being a cause, as the Doctor asserts, it is, generally speaking, an excellent preventive, the complaint being very frequently an attendant on indolence and a sedentary life. It is very difficult to account for the constipating effects of those articles which produce the sensation on the organs of taste, termed astringent. I am disposed to attribute their effects to their acting more on the secerning vessels of the internal surface of the intestines, preventing a proper secretion of fæcal matter, than, as Dr. Good supposes, to their stimulating effects on the absorbents; and as to his opinion that the action of astringents on the sphincter muscle of the rectum is a cause of costiveness, it is ridiculous; the office of the longitudinal fibres of that muscle being to expel, and not to retain, the faces. But, if astringents act by invigorating the absorbents, why does rhubarb, which is, chemically speaking, a strong astringent, act as an aperient? The fact is, that on robust subjects, whose digestion is good, a mild mucilaginous diet, as vege

table and animal jellies, have a more constipating effect than stimulating articles; and surely Dr. Good will not say that they produce the effect by stimulating the absorbents.

According to the professional acceptation of the term-constipation, a person is said not only to be costive when the bowels are not regularly relieved every day, but also when the fæces are too hard to receive a form from the rectum, or when they are what is technically called scybalous, i. e. in hardened globular masses, from being moulded in the cells of the colon. The reader must bear in mind that the daily discharge is, however, relative; for the constitution accustomed to a fæcal evacuation every fourth day, cannot be said to labour under a disease, if three days should elapse between the periods, unless the general health be disturbed by it, or the motions too hard to pass with ease. When costiveness, either constipation or obstipation, is attended with head-ache, giddiness, colicky pains, distention of the bowels, flatulence, loss of appetite, and other symptoms of indigestion, it should then be considered a disease.

When we consider the great variety of articles of the materia medica which are capable of increasing the peristaltic motion of the intestines, and their gradations of strength, we are disposed to say that the person must be little better than an idiot, who cannot contrive, by means of some of them, to obviate a degree of costiveness, which in his constitution is clearly inimical to health; but this is, under certain circumstances, often very difficult. (See CATHARTICS, page 20.)

The proper alvine discharge does not entirely consist of the refuse of the aliment taken into the stomach, a considerable portion being a secretion from the internal surface of the lower part of the intestinal canal, named the colon; for on dissection we find the contents of the upper or small intestines free from the fæcal characters; and on examining the folds of the colon, the true fæcal secretion may be distinguished from the refuse of the food. Hence a substantial fæcal discharge may be produced by means of a purgative medicine, four or five times a day, from a patient who has not for many weeks taken any substantial food, and even when they have been supported by clysters of broth. In cases of constipation, the object of practice is not to hurry the contents of the small intestines into the large ones, but to promote the fæcal secretion of the colon; and this secretion being entirely excrementitious, it is, in my opinion, of much greater consequence to the general health, than that of the liver (bile) to which it is now the fashion to attribute nearly all the diseases, local and general, that occur in the human body.

Although it is common to meet with individuals (especially females) in perfect health, whose bowels are seldom relieved