Would to heaven it were as easy to point out the cure, as to describe the symptoms of a disease of such a formidable nature, and against which the powers of medicine have been directed with such bad success, that there is reason to fear, its fatal termination has been oftener accelerated than retarded by the means employed to remove it! To particularise the drugs which have been long in use, and have been honoured with the highest encomiums for their great efficacy in healing inward bruises, ulcers of the lungs, and confirmed consumptions, would in many instances be pointing out, what ought to be shunned as pernicious, and in others what ought to be neglected as futile. Salt water, and some of the mineral springs, which are unquestionably beneficial in scrophulous and other distempers, have been found hurtful, or at least inefficacious, in the consumption; there is no sufficient reason to depend on a course of these, or any medicine at present known, for preventing or dissolving tubercles in the lungs. Mercury, which has been found so powerful in disposing other ulcers to heal, has no good effect on ulcers of that organ;—though some physicians imagine it may be of service in the beginning to dissolve tubercles, before they begin to suppurate; but as there is no absolute evidence, during life, of indolent tubercles being formed, there can be none that mercury cures them. Various kinds of gums, with the natural and artificial balsams, were long supposed to promote the healing of external wounds and ulcers, and on that account were made the basis of a vast variety of ointments and plaisters. It was afterwards imagined, that the same remedies, administered internally, would have the same effect on internal ulcers; and of course many of those gums and balsams were prescribed in various forms for the pulmonary consumption. The reasoning on which this practice was established, however, seems a little shallow, and is far from being conclusive; for although it were granted, that these balsams contributed to the cure of wounds, when applied directly to the part, it does not follow that they could carry their healing powers, unimpaired, from the stomach to the lungs, through the whole process of digestion. But more accurate surgery having made it manifest, that the granulations which spring up to supply the loss of substance in external wounds, and the healing or skinning over of all kinds of sores, proceeds from no active virtue in the plaisters or ointments with which they are dressed, but is entirely the work of nature, and best performed when the mildest substances, or even dry lint only is applied; and that heating gums, resins, and balsams, rather retard than promote their cure; the internal use of such remedies ought to be rejected now, on the same principles they were adapted formerly.