Note 252 — ON THE THEORY AND ART OF PRESCRIBING.

Astruc, and other practitioners of the same school, always premised a mercurial course with venesection: it is probable that many of the anomalies observed in the modern application of this remedy may have arisen from an inattention to the diet of those who are under mercurial influence. Mercury is in itself a most powerful stimulant, and ought therefore to be accompanied with depletion and low diet; besides which, the experiments of Majendie have shewn how greatly such a state of the system will expedite the effects of the mercurial remedy.