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 aggravate all syphilitic complaints, but they can be tried, as touch-stone, in doubtful cases of that morbid principle, which they generally awaken, if dormant. I have seen them however stop chronic and indolent blenorrheas, after the inflammatory and painful period had ceased, when the gleet does not proceed from strictures of the urethra, indurations of the prostate and other organic disorders of the urinary passages.

They aggravate scorbutic affections, and accelerate often the disorganization of abdominal scirrhous parts, when too far advanced. They are in general dangerous in dropsy, though we have seen them succeed in a few cases of anasarca, without visceral indurations of too long standing. If a physician thinks himself justified to try them in dropsical cases, the utmost circumspection and very small doses are necessary. The most delicate part of our practice is to draw a line of demarcation, and to determine, in abdominal diseases, whether the affected part is already in a state of disorganization; and, where consumptive and hectical symptoms have began, whether the waters can be tried, or whether we must refuse them to such individuals. I shall relate a most remarkable case, where I tried them rather unwillingly, following the axiom: Potiùs remedium anceps quam nullum:

An English lady, four and twenty years of age, the last of a family swept off by consumption, had enjoyed good health, till she married, in her seven-