Читать книгу Pharmacologia - John Ayrton Paris - Страница 44

The term Diaphoretic has been applied to those medicines which increase the natural exhalation of the skin, and when they act so powerfully as to occasion sweating, they have been commonly distinguished by the name of Sudorifics, but as no difference exists between these remedies, but in the degree of force with which they act, we may very properly comprehend the whole under the general title of Diaphoretics: the fluid effused is also in both cases similar, but in the one it is discharged more slowly, and is carried off by the conducting^[161] power of the air, in the insensible form of vapour, while in the other case it is so copiously effused from the exhalant vessels, as to appear in the liquid form.

As obstructed perspiration may depend upon very different, and even opposite states of the system, so may the most adverse medicines fall under the denomination of diaphoretic remedies.

In some affections, a deficient diaphoresis may be associated with increased vascular action, and in others, with a slow languid circulation.

Diaphoretics may be considered as operating, either by directly stimulating the cutaneous capillaries;—by increasing the general action of the vascular system;—by relaxing the morbidly constricted mouths of the perspiratory vessels;—or, lastly, by producing at once both the latter of these effects.

In conformity with the plan adopted on other occasions, I shall proceed to investigate the powers of this class of medicines, according to their supposed modes of operation.