As camphor then seems to repress inordinate or irregular actions in the sanguiferous and nervous systems, while without any very striking or perceptible stimulus it determines to the skin, we may expect to find it highly useful in those affections where the action of either system is disturbed. If, however, we were to judge from its effects in diseases, we should pronounce it to be rather a stimulant than a sedative antispasmodic; since, when the actions are irregular and excessive, it requires more caution, and some additions of a refrigerant nature. No stimuli, on the contrary, are apparently required when the irregularity is attended with defective energy. It has been long since employed in inflammatory fevers, particularly when attended with delirium; but, in this state, the addition of nitre has generally been found necessary. When the delirium is violent, the doses which may be given, after due evacuations have been procured, are considerable; but, in general, an equal dose of nitre is necessary. This medicine is more convenient, as in the state which connects the more inflammatory with the lower or more putrid periods of the disease it is well adapted to each, if, on the one side, the nitre is omitted, and on the other, cordials are avoided. In the irregular delirium of the nervous and putrid fever it is highly useful; and while at any period its effects are assisted by the antimonial powder, so in these it may be advantageously combined with the aromatic confection, or, in a later stage, with volatile alkali. In short, we know no medicine that, with different additions, is so well adapted to every period of fever: it is soothing, calming, and composing. It-prevents opium from producing irregular action in the brain; it prevents bark from inducing stricture on the skin; and stimulants from exciting a dry and uncomfortable heat. In the lowest pestilential fevers it is said to act as a cordial: in fact, it relieves the internal accumulations by its tendency to the surface, and seems to give strength when it only takes off oppression. These are its effects, not collected from books, but from experience; not suggested by theoretical speculations, but from attentive observation at the sick bed. Yet camphor has been said to be useless; an opinion which must be the result of prejudice, since it has been offered by those not without discernment, not without experience.

From the same train of reasoning we might suppose it highly useful in inflammatory or putrid sore throats. It has undoubtedly been found so, but the topical stimulus in the first instance has occasioned it to be swallowed with difficulty; and in the second, the necessity of giving the most active tonics and stimulants in the largest doses that can be taken, has often precluded the use of camphor. Yet it has been employed with success, though, for the reasons just assigned, we cannot speak of it from any very extensive experience.

If we pusue inflammations to the chest, we shall still find it an useful auxiliary. In pleurisy we seldom want its aid; and in the earlier stages of peripneumony the most active refrigerants arc necessary. Yet, when the excess of inflammation is diminished, when the skin remains dry, and expectoration does not come on, camphor, with antimonials, is highly useful. Common practice prefers, as we have formerly said, the kermes mineral, perhaps with reason; for should it not act as an expectorant, it will not so readily prove laxative; an effect always to be dreaded in peripneumony, as it checks expectoration. In the putrid peripneumony, camphor is the chief remedy. Though this disease is uncommon, it has been the author's fortune to witness four extensive epidemics of this kind; and camphor was among the most generally useful remedies.

We find little room for this medicine in gastritis or enteritis; but in the peritonitis puerperarum it is highly-beneficial. This inflammation is not, however, confined to the puerperal state: we have often seen it, with no very dissimilar symptoms, in each sex, unconnected with parturition; and have found the camphor equally useful. In inflammations of the kidneys and bladder it seems a very efficacious medicine; yet chiefly applicable to that chronic inflammation of the neck of the bladder which often takes place from acrimony, or sometimes from abraded mucus. On the bladder and the genital system its sedative power is considerable, without the slightest mixture of stimulus; and, not to return again to the subject, we may remark, that in that weakened, irritable state of the genital powers, from excessive or unnatural indulgencies, it is essentially useful. In inflammations of the joints it has been commended, particularly in gout and rheumatism; yet we know of no very decided instances of its efficacy. In inflammatory rheumatism, with nitre and antimonials, it may be useful.

In the exanthemata, camphor is a medicine of singular utility. In confluent small pox, and particularly in repressed eruptions, it is peculiarly useful from its determination to the skin, without any injurious stimulus. In scarlatina, that equivocal disease, which, with the most violent external heat, is often putrid, it is equally advantageous: and, in plague, it has been highly extolled by those who have had more numerous opportunities of observing its effects than have been offered to us. In the putrid measles we should suppose it, from analogy, to be useful; but we recollect no instance of its employment in this disease, and it has never occurred to us.

We have said, that, with its power of diminishing irregular action, it leans rather to the side of a stimulant than a sedative power. Thus, in mania, where it has been employed with success, it is necessary to add nitre or the acetous acid. In convulsive disorders it is seldom trusted alone, but it has been advantageously joined with the metallic tonics. In convulsive asthma it has not been often employed; and the stimulus of its oil on the cardia has often rendered it inconvenient in hysteria. United, however, with the warm gums, it has been, in our hands, very useful.