MS

210 OF INVOLUNTARY DISCHARGES OF BLOOD.

honey has been found to give considerable ease in cases where thtstomach could not bear any thing of an acrid nature. A decoctionof raw coffee-berries taken morning and evening, to the quantity oeight or ten ounces, with ten drops of spirit of nitrous etheiis - eet si>irit of nitre), sweetened with honey, has likewise been founiivery e'i cacious in bringing away large quantities of earthy mattern flakes.

The onty other medicine which we shall mention is the uva urfit has been greatly extolled of late both for the gravel and stone. Itseems however to be in all respects inferior to the soap and lime water;but it is less disagreeable, and has frequently, to my knowledge, relievedgravelly complaints. It is generally taken in powder from half adrachm to a whole drachm, two or three times a day. It may howeverbe taken to the quantity of seven or eight drachms a-day, with greatsafety and good effect.

In violent fits of the disorder, the semicupium or the warm bath isgood: the body should be kept moderately open by a solution ofvitriolAted magnesia, or by the electuary of senna, castor-oil,or the infusion of senna.

CHAP. XXXIII.

I

OF INVOLUNTARY DISCHARGES OF BLOOD.

SPONTANEOUS or involuntary discharges of blood often happenfrom various parts of the body. These however are so far from beingalways dangerous, that they often prove salutary. When such dischargesare critical, which is frequently the case in fevers, they ought not to bestopped. Nor indeed is it proper at any time to stop them, unless theybe so great as to endanger the patient's life. Most people, afraid of thesmallest discharge of blood from any part of the body, fly immediatelyto the use of styptic and astringent medicines, by which means an inflam-mation of the brain, or some other fatal disease, is occasioned, which,had the discharge been allowed to go on, might have been prevented.

Periodical discharges of blood, from whatever part of the body theyproceed, must not be stopped. They are always the efforts of Nature torelieve herself; and fatal diseases have often been the consequence ofobstructing them. It may indeed be sometimes necessary to check theviolence of such discharges; but even this requires the greatest caution.Instances might be given where the stopping of a small periodical flux ofblood from one of the fingers has proved fatal to the patient.

In the early period of life, bleeding at the nose is very common.Those who are farther advanced in years are more liable to hasmoptoe,or discharge of blood from the lungs. After the middle period of life,hemorrhoidal fluxes are most common; and in the decline of life, dis-charges of blood from the urinary passages.

Involuntary fluxes of blood may proceed from very different and oftenfrom quite opposite causes. Sometimes they are owing to a particularconstruction of the body, as a sanguine temperament, a laxity of the vesselsa plethoric habit, &c. At other times they proceed from a determination