Note 31 — Prop. IV.—That some few remedial agents act locally on the mucous surface, either before absorption, or without being absorbed at all. That they are chiefly as follow:—

The details of this arrangement are founded solely upon the therapeutic operation of medicines, as used to cure diseases, and not in any way upon their physiological action upon a healthy man. Much unnecessary confusion, in works on Materia Medica, has arisen from these two different matters being taken into account at the same time. Food is the only restoration of wanting material needful to a healthy man; neither is there in such a case any need or opportunity for the counteraction of morbid agencies.