But who can suppose that a dozen or twenty stools in a day could endanger life, that has seen a diarrh[oe]a continue for several months, attended with fifteen or twenty stools every day, without making even a material breach in the constitution? Hence Dr. Hillary has justly remarked, that "it rarely or never happens that the purging in this disease, though violent, takes the patient off, but the fever and inflammation of the bowels[69]." Dr. Clark in like manner remarks, that evacuations do not destroy life in the dysentery, but the fever, with the emaciation and mortification which attend and follow the disease[70]. [69] Diseases of Barbadoes, p. 212. [70] Diseases in Voyages to Hot Climates, vol. ii. p. 322. 2. A second objection to this mercurial purge was, that it excited a salivation, and sometimes loosened the teeth. I met with but two cases in which there was a loss of teeth from the use of this medicine, and in both the teeth were previously loose or decayed. The salivation was a trifling evil, compared with the benefit which was derived from it. I lost only one patient in whom it occurred. I was taught, by this accidental effect of mercury, to administer it with other views than merely to cleanse the bowels, and with a success which added much to my confidence in the power of medicine over this disease. I shall mention those views under another head. 3. It was said that the mercurial purge excoriated the rectum, and produced the symptoms of pain and inflammation in that part, which were formerly mentioned. To refute this charge, it will be sufficient to remark that the bile produces the same excoriation and pain in the rectum in the bilious and yellow fever, where no mercury has been given to discharge it. In the bilious remitting fever which prevailed in Philadelphia in 1780, we find the bile which was discharged by "gentle doses of salts, and cream of tartar, or the butternut pill, was so acrid as to excoriate the rectum, and so offensive as to occasion, in some cases, sickness and faintness both in the patients, and in their attendants[71]." [71] Vol. i. Dr. Hume says further upon this subject, that the rectum was so much excoriated by the natural discharge of bile in the yellow fever, as to render it impossible to introduce a glyster pipe into it.