that, under a peculiar state of irritation, the biliary organs may secrete a bile of so very acrid a nature as to excite an almost immediately fatal impression upon the alimentary canal, especially when suddenly effused, and in a highly concentrated form. We have deemed it right to adduce these various authorities, in relation to the important question before us, still, however, reserving our opinion, that the physician will on such occasions, by means of the subsidiary sources of discrimination above enumerated, generally be enabled to form a diagnosis[176] which, although it may not amount to certainty, must be considered as capable of increasing the weight of the general mass of circumstantial evidence. As the medical treatment to be adopted in cases of acute disease, or poisoning, can hardly be considered a subject of Medical Jurisprudence, we should have passed it over in silence, did not the evidence delivered upon the trial of Donnall imperiously call upon us for some animadversion; and we feel it our painful duty upon this occasion to observe, that the whole tenor of the medical defence displayed a very unbecoming contest; the witnesses conducted themselves like advocates, raising doubts, and defending their positions with a pertinacity that belongs to those who seek triumph rather than truth. In the cure of cholera the experience of the physicians of all ages wholly concurs. In the commencement of the disease the evacuation of the redundant bile is to be favoured by the plentiful exhibition of mild diluents, and after the redundant bile has been thus eliminated, or when the spasmodic affections of the alimentary canal become dangerously violent, opiates, in sufficiently large doses, but in small bulk, may be administered. To employ evacuants, as _Sydenham_ quaintly observes, “is to increase the disturbance, and as it were, to endeavour to quench fire by oil; and on the other hand, to commence with opiates is shutting up the enemy in the bowels.” Under such authority, we presume, one of the witnesses in the defence of Donnall, felt justified in condemning the practice of the respectable physician who attended the deceased (_Appendix, p._ 304); but we here see a witness assuming as a fact, what was never proved in evidence, and then deducing conclusions from it. _Dr. Edwards_ informed the court that “there were no symptoms of cholera morbus when _he_ saw Mrs. Downing; but from what _he_ heard of her complaint, he imagined that there was something offensive either in the stomach or bowels, which ought to be evacuated.” (_Ibid. p._ 286.)