The
use of prussic acid in the cure of consumptions, lately suggested by M.
Magendie, at Paris, is little more than the revival of the Dutch
practice in this disorder; for Linnaeus informs us, that distilled
laurel water was frequently used in the cure of pulmonary
consumption.[135]
We shall conclude these observations with a few remarks on what are
termed _patent medicines, nostrums_, or _quack medicines_, and their
boasted pretensions in general. There is, in fact, but one state of
perfect health, yet the deviations from this state, and the general
species of diseases are almost infinite. Hence it will easily be
understood, that in the classes of medical remedies, there must likewise
he a great variety, and that some of them are even of opposite
tendencies. Such are both the warm and cold bath considered as medical
remedies. Though opposite to each other in their sensible effects, each
of them manifests its medical virtues, yet only in such a state of the
body as will admit of using it with advantage. From these premises, it
is evident that an universal remedy, or one that possesses healing
powers for the _cure of all diseases_, is, in fact, a non-entity, a mere
delusion, the existence of which is physically impossible, as the mere
idea of such a thing involves a contradiction.
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