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Medicines of this kind, when administered for the purpose of dispelling wind from the alimentary canal, have been termed Carminatives.^[147] They would seem to act by imparting energy to the distended and weakened muscular coat of the stomach, by which the accumulated gas is propelled through the upper orifice; for this viscus, like the bladder, when greatly distended, becomes unable to relieve itself, partly in consequence of the exhausted state of the over-stretched fibres of its muscular coat, and partly perhaps from a contraction of the Cardia, or upper orifice; for it has been already stated that a loss of power, and spasmodic action, are often the simultaneous results of debility.

Substances which, when applied to the human body, corrugate and condense its fibres, and at the same time, exert a tonic influence through the medium of its living principle.

Astringency in any substance may be at once recognised by the organs of taste; its power in corrugating the papillæ of the tongue, and in imparting a sensation of harshness and roughness to the palate, being too peculiar to be mistaken; this is a fortunate circumstance, for there does not exist any one chemical test by which we can invariably detect the property of astringency, since it is found to reside in many different classes of substances: thus, acids, especially the stronger mineral ones, are powerfully astringent; so are many of the metallic salts, as those of iron, zinc, copper, and lead; and some of the earths, when combined with acids, of which alum is a striking example. The vegetable kingdom, however, furnishes the greater number of astringent remedies; and chemistry has shewn that this property uniformly depends upon a peculiar proximate principle, characterized by its power of forming an insoluble compound with animal gelatine; to this principle the name of Tannin has been given. As tannin generally exists in union with gallic acid, and as the latter body is known by its property of striking an inky blackness with the salts of iron, solutions of this metal were long, but erroneously, regarded as the proper test of vegetable astringency; the fallacy of this is at once shewn by the habitudes of Catechu, one of the strongest of our astringents, but which, nevertheless, will not yield the smallest degree of blackness to the solutions of iron, because it contains only tannin, the true principle of astringency, without a trace of its usual associate the gallic acid. From the power which these substances possess of astringing, and condensing the animal solids, their medicinal properties are supposed to arise, and we may perhaps, in this instance, admit such a mechanical explanation; but astringents possess also some power over the living principle of the matter which they astringe, for they are capable of acting as permanent stimulants, of curing intermitting fever, and of obviating states of general debility. Astringents would seem to moderate the morbidly increased secretions of distant parts, and to restrain hemorrhage, by their corrugating influence upon the primæ viæ,^[148] which is extended by sympathetic action to the vascular fibre; it is not difficult for any person to conceive the possibility of such a sympathy, who has ever experienced the thrilling and singular feeling which is produced over the whole body, by the acerb taste of the sloe-juice. As however the primary operation of these bodies, by their actual contact with the animal fibre, must be much more powerful than that which can result from the mere sympathy of parts, we find that the efficacy of astringents is principally displayed in the cure of diarrhœa, or serous evacuations from the intestinal canal; their operation, in checking profuse fluor albus, gleet, and the inordinate secretions of other distant organs, is much less striking and unequivocal, and it is a question whether in many of such cases the benefit arising from their use may not depend upon their tonic powers. As the morbid excess of different evacuations may arise from various and opposite states of the living system, so may the individuals of the other classes become astringents; and we are bound to admit upon this, as we have on other occasions, the existence of absolute and relative remedies.