e Digitalis pills and opiate at bed-time continued. Takes a tea cup
of cold chamomile tea every morning.

25th. Swelling much diminished, makes plenty of water, appetite much
mended, cough and breathing better. She omitted the medicine for three
days; the urine began to diminish, the swelling and shortness of
breathing worse. On repeating it for two days, the discharge was again
augmented, and a diminution of the swelling succeeded. She has
continued the pills ever since till the 14th of _May_; the dropsical
symptoms and cough are entirely gone, the water is in sufficient
quantity, her strength is recovered, and she has a good appetite. All
she now complains of is a weight across her stomach, which is worse at
times, and she thinks, unless it can be removed, she shall have a
return of her dropsy.

Extract of a Letter from Doctor FOWLER,
Physician, at Stafford.

I understand you are going to publish on the Digitalis, which I am
glad to hear, for I have long wished to see your ideas in print about
it, and I know of no one (from the great attention you have paid to
the subject) qualified to treat on it but yourself. There are
gentlemen of the faculty who give verbal directions to poor patients,
for the preparing and taking of an infusion or decoction of the green
plant. Would one suppose that such gentlemen had ever attended to the
nature and operation of a sedative power on the functions,
_particularly_ the _vital_? Is not such a vague and unscientific mode
of proceeding putting a two edged sword into the the hands of the
ignorant, and the most likely method to damn the reputation of any
very active and powerful medicine? And is it not more than probable
that the _neglect_ of adhereing to a _certain_ and _regular_
preparation of the nicotiana, and the _want_ (of what you
_emphatically_ call) a _practicable_ dose, have been the chief causes
of the once rising reputation of that noted plant being damned above
a century ago? In short, the Digitalis is beginning to be used in
dropsies, (although some patients are said to go off suddenly under
its administration) somewhat in the style of broom ashes; and, in my
humble opinion, the public, at this very instant, stand in great need
of your _precepts_, _guards_, and _cautions_ towards the safe and
successful use of such a powerful sedative diuretic; and I have no
doubt of your minute attention to those particulars, from a regard to
th