THE MEDICINES OF NATURE 45
Emetics are well adapted to the cure of every variety of colic, or cramp in the stomach. In diarrhoae, dysentery and cholera morbus, digestion is nil, and the stomach contains more or less foul matter, and its mucous surface is coated with thickened secretions, interfering with its functions, which naturally increases the distress of the latter, and favors the disease. To excite free vomiting is particularly indicated in the treatment of such disorders and besides relieving the stomach of foul matter and giving tone to the organ, such emetics exert a beneficial influence upon the secretions, cause a determination of the blood to the surface, restore capillary circulation, and aid the efforts of Nature to restore healthy activity in the mucous membrane of the bowels.
Epilepsy, or falling sickness, as it is most generally known, is in many instances traceable to a congested or otherwise disordered condition of the stomach and indicates the employment of emetics. By exhibiting them just before the time for the onset of a paroxysm, they will frequently prevent it, and even if they fail wholly to do this, they render the spasms milder and of shorter duration. Nor is this all they accomplish, for by the strong and direct impression made on the stomach and nervous system, the commencement in that organ of the wrong association constituting the disease, is broken, and it will yield more readily to indicated remedies.
Nearly the same view may be taken of hysteria. Even admitting that the disease is mostly the result of a congested uterus, it does unquestionably frequently proceed from gastric irritation, and demands to be treated accordingly. Whatever may be the immediate cause of the paroxysm, no remedy is so quickly effective as an emetic. It promptly allays the convulsive agitation of the nervous system, and creates a state of mental composure which invites restorative sleep.
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