remedy will have done; if for these a remedy is not quickly provided, the effect re-produces itself faster than before; and if way is given to the employing purgatives a-new, the evil is a second time augmented; besides that the intestines are made thereby to contract indisposition to stools, which hinders their functions, till at length they arrive at such a point that there is no obtaining evacuations from them but by physic. In short, purgatives, in the case of obstructions in the first passages of weak persons, can produce no diminution of the effect but by augmenting the causes, nor give a momentary relief but as they make the disease worse. And yet this method is but too much followed; the sick generally like it, to them it has an air of quickness or dispatch; and, indeed, provided that the failure of strength be not too considerable, they find themselves relieved for a few days. The evil, it is true, returns, but they had rather impute it to the insufficiency than to the operation of that remedy, to which they have taken a liking. Besides, the sick are ever for the present relief, and few physicians have the courage to oppose this weakness. Yet is it important, as well in physic as in morality, to know when to sacrifice the present to the future: a neglect of this law peoples the world with wretches and with valetudinarians. It were much to be wished, that there should be inculcated to many physicians, as well as to many patients, that fine passage to be found in the _Pathologia_ of M. GAUBIUS, upon all the evils which are the consequence of the abuse of purgatives[118]. Are not there, will it be said, some cases, in which emetics and purgatives may be admitted for the sick of whom I am treating? Doubtless, some there are, but they are very rare; and great attention is requisite not to be mistaken as to the signs which seem to indicate evacuatives, and which often depend on a cause that is to be attacked by remedies of quite another nature. I will not enter into a discussion of these distinctions; that would be quite out of place here; it is enough for me to observe, that evacuatives are rarely advisable in this disorder. M. LEWIS is of opinion, “that a gentle emetic may serviceably prepare the first passages for the other remedies, but would not have that exceeded;” a multitude of cases have taught me, that even that might and often ought to be omitted; and I have precedently adduced two observations of M. HOFFMAN, which prove all the danger for that remedy. But even, without recourse to experience, common sense alone may suffice to persuade one, that a remedy which gives convulsions, cannot be very proper for a disorder which are the effects of repeated convulsions.