Diaphoretics - or sudorifics, as they are also called - are medicines which promote diaphoresis or sweating. Their action in stimulating transpiration by the skin may be enhanced by exercise, external warmth, nauseants, and drugs which dilate the vessels, determining more blood to the cutaneous blood-vessels.

Diaphoretics are employed principally for their evacuant, revulsive, and alterative effects, and to promote absorption. Some of the drugs here considered might be classed with those whose chief action is on the spinal cord. Toxicologically they affect the cord - therapeutically they are used mainly as diaphoretics. This is particularly true of pilocarpus and physostigma.