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The pharmaceutical applications of this class of medicines constitute, perhaps, not the least part of their value, by which we are enabled to introduce acrid substances into the stomach with safety and effect; but such services will more properly fall under our notice in a future part of the work.

Watery liquors, which increase the fluidity of the blood, and render several of the secreted and excreted fluids less viscid.

There are certainly few remedies whose operation is more simple, obvious, or important; and yet there are scarcely any whose value has been more mistaken, or whose application has been so frequently perverted through the suggestions of false theory; water is the universal beverage of animals, and the necessity of its supply is indicated by thirst, a sensation which in excess, is borne with less tranquillity even than that of hunger; in certain morbid states of the body its presence is to be regarded as indicating the necessity of copious potation; and yet how often has the prejudiced physician, under such circumstances, aggravated the pressure of disease, by adding the sufferings of Tantalus. In febrile affections, the irritation of thirst tends to keep up the disease, and hence diluents, besides the other beneficial effects which they may produce, must be regarded as important remedies. There are also diseases of the alimentary canal which may be removed by the same agents; when water is conveyed into the intestines it will have a tendency, by mixing with, and diluting the biliary secretion, to diminish its acrimony, and thus to obviate a source of morbid irritation; the dilution of the chyme and chyle may also have a salutary tendency, and favour the absorption of the finer and more nutritive parts of the lacteals; and by increasing the fluidity of the mass, expedite the numerous combinations which it is destined to undergo. The blood itself is also thus modified in its fluidity; although it has been very truly observed that in healthy bodies, or such as are without any obstruction of the excretions, an unusual distension of the vessels cannot be produced, or at least long subsist; for it is evident that such an increased quantity of water in the blood will immediately pass off by one or other of the excretions; this effect, however, in itself, renders the operation of diluents of signal service in the treatment of the disease; in consequence, for instance, of their disposition to pass off by urine, they furnish valuable resources in diseases of the urinary organs, allaying the pain of strangury, and the irritation from an inflamed bladder. From these observations, the practitioner will be led to appreciate the value of diluents; and many of the beneficial effects which are daily experienced from the copious potation of mineral waters, are, without doubt, to be wholly attributed to simple dilution. See Aqua.