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