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Narcotics, at the head of which stands opium, will frequently assume the character of astringents, by diminishing the irritability upon which increased discharges depend. In Diarrhœa, an astringent, properly so called, diminishes the flow of those acrid fluids into the intestines, by which their peristaltic motions are præternaturally increased, and it consequently represses the diarrhœa; a narcotic, under similar circumstances, might not repress the flow of the acrid matter to which I have alluded, but it would render the bowels less susceptible to its stimulus, and would therefore produce the same apparent alleviation, although by a very different mode of operation. There is yet a third species of remedy, which may operate in restraining a diarrhœa of this description; not by stopping the flow of acrid matter, nor by diminishing the irritability of the intestinal organs, as in the instances above recited, but, simply, by acting chemically upon the offending matter, so as to disarm it of its acrid qualities; such, for instance, is the nature of absorbent and testaceous medicines. In the cure of hemorrhage, if it be active, that is to say, connected with a state of strong tonic contractility of the blood-vessels, a very different remedy will be required as an astringent, than in cases of passive hemorrhage, in which the vascular fibres are in a state of relaxation or collapse. Sir Gilbert Blane has offered some valuable remarks upon this subject, with a view to settle the difference of opinion which has arisen respecting the treatment of flooding after child-birth. (Medical Logic, Edit. 2d. p. 100.)