functions are usually much out of order, and the patient complains of flatulence and great acidity of stomach, much increased by acescent fruits and vegetables, and indulgence in port wine.

It is of the utmost importance that such derangements of the system should be speedily recognised. A few grains of carbonate of potass taken three or four hours after dinner, and persevered in for a short time will remove a great deal of mischief; and prevent the formation of stone in the bladder, which cost the patient, whose case I have just mentioned, his life.

Liebig has lately announced the existence of hippuric acid, Fig. 18, as a constituent of human urine. It is Fig. 18. occasionally present in quantity in the urine of nervous patients; and in the urine of persons who have been compelled to live for some time upon a poor, low, and bad diet. Change of air, and good nutritious food, with tranquillity of mind, will be found among the most effectual

remedies.

When hippuric acid is present, the urine is generally of a low specific gravity, remarkably pale, and is passed in large quantities. When it is found, the patients are fond of drinking copiously of tea, and often evince a distaste for animal food. Indeed, analytically, the urine approaches in quality that of herbivorous animals, such as the cow, or the sheep. It may always be inferred from these facts, that soup, pastry, raw and green vegetables and fruit will disagree. The system requires, if I may so say, animalising. Animal food, and its near approximation, cod liver oil, judiciously given, are of great service.

When the urine is voided in small quantities, of a high specific gravity, and is deeply coloured, it generally contains large proportions of urea and uric acid. Enquiry will show that the patients live principally upon animal food, and the urine in its analysis will resemble that of carnivorous animals, for instance, the lion, the tiger, leopard, hyena, and panther. A vegetable diet under such circumstances will be found highly beneficial.

The earthy phosphates are constantly deposited from the urine of nervous patients, and many of the symptoms, in such cases, are analogous to those which occur in the lithic acid diathesis. The triple or ammonio-magnesian phosphate is delineated in the wood-cut subjoined.

Fig. 19.

The deposition of the prismatic phosphate is generally accompanied with severe pain in the back, much increased by any exertion, especially if the lumbar and dorsal muscles are much or actively employed.

We frequently find cutaneous eruptions upon different parts of the body associated, or in some way connected with the deposition of the triple salt. "That a tendency to a deposition of these earthy salts in the urine," says Dr. Prout, "is sometimes hereditary there can be no doubt. Moreover, this tendency often assumes different forms in different members of the same family, and even in the same individual at different periods of his life. Thus, when one individual of a family has suffered from a deposition of the phosphates, another has suffered from gout; a second from asthma; a third from cutaneous disease."*

I have for some time attended a gentleman who has been suffering for many years from spasmodic asthma. * Page 287, 4th Edition.

The urine deposits the phosphates in great abundance. I have also attended the brother of this gentleman, his nephew, and three of his children all suffering from what they name nervousness, which it is said runs in the family. No two, however, suffer exactly alike. The gentleman told me that he thought he should have lost his life in consequence of having gone, on the recommendation of a physician, to a watering place, and drank largely of an alkaline spring. He was reduced to such a degree, and his health so very much shattered, that many months elapsed before it was restored to its ordinary state. One can hardly reconcile the probability of such an error, had there been even but an imperfect analysis of the urine.

I am at a loss to comprehend, why it is that in the present day urinary analysis is so little understood and practised by the general practitioner. It would supply him with information which nothing else can give, and upon a knowledge of which the safety of his patients must very often depend.

What I have now said in this treatise, will, I am fully aware, be far from receiving general approbation. There is neither sufficient to satisfy the homoeopathist nor exclusiveness enough to please the hydropathist. The allopathist will also, in many particulars, dissent entirely from my views; and I have no universal remedy of my own to recommend. One important duty, however, I have performed, and that is clearly and fearlessly to state, what mode of treatment I have found most beneficial in cases of nervous affections.

During the last sixteen years unusual advantages have afforded me the opportunity of witnessing the various plans of treatment adopted by some of our first allopathic practitioners in England and on the Continent; I have scen also the methods of treatment which are pursued by

the most eminent hydropathic, and the most celebrated homœopathic physicians at home and abroad; and the conviction forced upon me is, that there is something useful to be obtained from them all.

It is my decided opinion, that the physician and surgeon who refrain from the administration of medicine, when there is no necessity for its use, and who, regardless of prejudice, avail themselves of every other means suited to the individual case they may be called to treat, will be the most successful in practice.

THE END.