ach and bowels; how they derange digestion and nutrition;
how slowly patients recover from the effects of such drugs; how chronic
abdominal affections, after having been eased for a while by such drugs,
soon return again with redoubled vigor; how the dose has to be increased
in order to obtain the same result; how the intervals of relief becomes
shorter and shorter, and how, in the end, the stomach is totally ruined,
and the abnormal irritation and paralysis of this viscus, with the
diarrh[oe]a and constipation, corresponding to these conditions,
gradually lead to the complete derangement of the reproductive process.

In spite of all this, long habit has secured to these pernicious customs
a sort of prescriptive right. The distress consequent upon them,
increases in proportion as the reactive powers of the organism decrease,
which is more particularly the case in the present generation. The
suppression of these abuses has never been more necessary than in our
age. Indeed, the old proverb is again verified: "Where need is greatest,
there help is nearest."

The world is not only indebted to Hahnemann for a knowledge, but also
for a natural corrective of this serious abuse. His provings on healthy
persons show this beyond a doubt. Few men, if their attention has once
been directed to this abuse, will feel disposed to deny its extent. Nor
has a favorable change in this respect been looked for in vain, since
hom[oe]opathy has now, for half a century at least, shown the
uselessness of all regular methods of purgation, and the superiority of
the means with which this new system accomplishes most effectually all
that those pernicious methods promised to do. It should be considered a
duty by every physician, to be acquainted with the new means of cure.
The continued use of purgatives should be considered a crime against
health. They will soon cease to exist as regular means of treatment, and
their pernicious consequences will no longer have to be relieved by
remedial means. But until their use is abolished, we shall have to
counteract them by adequate means of cure, more particularly the
abnormal irritation and the paralytic debility, which are the most
common consequences of the abuse of cathartics.

It is a most fortunate thing that we have in Apis one of the most
reliable means of removing the evil effects of cathartic medicines. A
single globule of Apis 30 is sufficient to this end. It is best to use
it as follows: dissolv