th 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
ascerta