Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 1.djvu/81

 exemplified in dropsy. Mercury, used to a certain extent, corrects the vascular action which produces effusion, promoting also the absorption of what is effused. Carried beyond this, it may break down power and counteract all the good effected. A criterion by which to judge of its adequate administration, so as to avoid its excessive use, must here be valuable. For this the ordinary evidences of mercurial action are insufficient. The state of the urine, when albuminous, supplies a test of much value. The albumen will gradually diminish, and finally disappear under the use of mercury; but a prolonged use of this is liable to reproduce the albumen. Here the urine furnishes the only test by which to judge. I have seen the urine cleared of albumen, the subsidence of dropsy keeping pace with its decline. Anxious to accelerate or to keep the ground gained, I have, in such case, resorted again to mercury, but, with the effect of the albumen returning. The mercury was withdrawn, the albumen again ceased to appear. That the guidance here afforded by the urine was most salutary, I have no doubt, and I know of no indication, save that supplied by the urine, that could have afforded it. The specific gravity of urine, too, seems worthy of being ascertained, wherever the existing disease involves a morbid condition of this excretion.

It would be easy to pursue these remarks in more extended and minute detail, but enough, I conceive, has been stated, to shew the kind of scrutiny which both morbid actions and the operation of remedies should receive, in order to render medical reports available for the guidance of the practitioner. Without