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cess. Nervous and uneducated persons, instead of
employing their astringent dose simply to stop any
undue action from the bowels, would be apt, as the
danger neared them, to make it an habitual dram
in order to anticipate any such action; and the
frequent after-necessity for purgative medicine, thus
created, would constitute the very danger they
desire to avoid. Recognising, therefore, at its full
value the importance of immediately treating, in
every case, the first phenomena of epidemic diarrhoea,
I must yet doubt whether the conditions of medical
science and general education are such as to justify
the promulgation of general formulæ so liable to
extensive abuse. I speak of course with particular
reference to the metropolis. In remote rural districts
it may often be desirable that discreet and
intelligent persons—the Clergy, for instance, should
obtain from their medical neighbours some astringent
preparation to which—in the very rare event
of real emergency, temporary recourse might be
had: but—for so hazardous a condition of disease,
I must repeat as a general rule, that no nostrum,
even in the best-intentioned hands of ignorance, can
supply the place of medical discrimination.
During the acute prevalence of the epidemic in
any particular locality, it becomes of great importance
to bring the uneducated classes of society as
far as possible, under systematic medical care; in
the absence of which, they are likely to neglect all
premonitions of the disease, and thus to incur
much unnecessary danger. To fulfil this object.