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VOL. I. By ERASMUS DARWIN, M.D. F.R.S.
VOL. I. By ERASMUS DARWIN, M.D. F.R.S.
AUTHOR OF THE BOTANIC GARDEN. Principiò cœlum, ac terras, camposque liquentes, Lucentemque globum lunæ, titaniaque astra, Spiritus intùs alit, totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.—V IRG . Æn. vi. Earth, on whose lap a thousand nations tread, And Ocean, brooding his prolific bed, Night's changeful orb, blue pole, and silvery zones, Where other worlds encircle other suns, One Mind inhabits, one diffusive Soul Wields the large limbs, and mingles with the whole...
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DEDICATION.
DEDICATION.
To the candid and ingenious Members of the College of Physicians, of the Royal Philosophical Society, of the Two Universities, and to all those, who study the Operations of the Mind as a Science, or who practice Medicine as a Profession, the subsequent Work is, with great respect, inscribed by the Author, DERBY, May 1, 1794....
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ERASMUS DARWIN,
ERASMUS DARWIN,
ON HIS WORK INTITLED HAIL TO THE BARD! who sung, from Chaos hurl'd How suns and planets form'd the whirling world; How sphere on sphere Earth's hidden strata bend, And caves of rock her central fires defend; Where gems new-born their twinkling eyes unfold, And young ores shoot in arborescent gold. How the fair Flower, by Zephyr woo'd, unfurls Its panting leaves, and waves its azure curls; Or spreads in gay undress its lucid form To meet the sun, and shuts it to the storm; While in green veins im
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REFERENCES TO THE WORK.
REFERENCES TO THE WORK.
Botanic Garden. Part I. Line 1. Canto I. l. 105. —— 3. —— IV. l. 402. —— 4. —— I. l. 140. —— 5. —— III. l. 401. —— 8. —— IV. l. 452. —— 9. —— I. l. 14. Zoonomia. —— 12. Sect. XIII . —— 13. —— XXXIX. 4. 1 . —— 18. —— XVI. 2 . and XXXVIII . —— 26. —— XVI. 4 . —— 30. —— XVI. 4 . —— 36. —— XVI. 6 . —— 38. —— III . and VII . —— 43. —— X . —— 44. —— XVIII. 17 . —— 45. —— XVII. 3. 7 . —— 47. —— XVIII. 8 . —— 50. —— XXXIX. 4. 8 . —— 51. —— XXXIX the Motto. —— 54. —— XXXIX. 8 . Zoonomia. —— 12. Sect. XII
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PREFACE.
PREFACE.
The purport of the following pages is an endeavour to reduce the facts belonging to A NIMAL L IFE into classes, orders, genera, and species; and, by comparing them with each other, to unravel the theory of diseases. It happened, perhaps unfortunately for the inquirers into the knowledge of diseases, that other sciences had received improvement previous to their own; whence, instead of comparing the properties belonging to animated nature with each other, they, idly ingenious, busied themselves i
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SECT. I.
SECT. I.
OF MOTION. The whole of nature may be supposed to consist of two essences or substances; one of which may be termed spirit, and the other matter. The former of these possesses the power to commence or produce motion, and the latter to receive and communicate it. So that motion, considered as a cause, immediately precedes every effect; and, considered as an effect, it immediately succeeds every cause. The MOTIONS OF MATTER may be divided into two kinds, primary and secondary. The secondary motion
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SECT. II.
SECT. II.
EXPLANATIONS AND DEFINITIONS. I . Outline of the animal economy. — II . 1 . Of the sensorium. 2 . Of the brain and nervous medulla. 3 . A nerve. 4 . A muscular fibre. 5 . The immediate organs of sense. 6 . The external organs of sense. 7 . An idea or sensual motion. 8 . Perception. 9 . Sensation. 10 . Recollection and suggestion. 11 . Habit, causation, association, catenation. 12 . Reflex ideas. 13 . Stimulus defined. As some explanations and definitions will be necessary in the prosecution of t
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SECT. III.
SECT. III.
THE MOTIONS OF THE RETINA DEMONSTRATED BY EXPERIMENTS. I . Of animal motions and of ideas. II . The fibrous structure of the retina. III . The activity of the retina in vision. 1 . Rays of light have no momentum. 2 . Objects long viewed become fainter. 3 . Spectra of black objects become luminous. 4 . Varying spectra from gyration. 5 . From long inspection of various colours. IV . Motions of the organs of sense constitute ideas. 1 . Light from pressing the eye-ball, and sound from the pulsation
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SECT. IV.
SECT. IV.
LAWS OF ANIMAL CAUSATION. I . The fibres, which constitute the muscles and organs of sense, possess a power of contraction. The circumstances attending the exertion of this power of CONTRACTION constitute the laws of animal motion, as the circumstances attending the exertion of the power of ATTRACTION constitute the laws of motion of inanimate matter. II . The spirit of animation is the immediate cause of the contraction of animal fibres, it resides in the brain and nerves, and is liable to gene
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SECT. V.
SECT. V.
OF THE FOUR FACULTIES OR MOTIONS OF THE SENSORIUM. 1 . Four sensorial powers. 2 . Irritation, sensation, volition, association defined. 3 . Sensorial motions distinguished from fibrous motions. 1 . The spirit of animation has four different modes of action, or in other words the animal sensorium possesses four different faculties, which are occasionally exerted, and cause all the contractions of the fibrous parts of the body. These are the faculty of causing fibrous contractions in consequence o
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SECT. VI.
SECT. VI.
OF THE FOUR CLASSES OF FIBROUS MOTIONS. I . Origin of fibrous contractions. II . Distribution of them into four classes, irritative motions, sensitive motions, voluntary motions, and associate motions, defined. I . All the fibrous contractions of animal bodies originate from the sensorium, and resolve themselves into four classes, correspondent with the four powers or motions of the sensorium above described, and from which they have their causation. 1 . These fibrous contractions were originall
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SECT. VII.
SECT. VII.
OF IRRITATIVE MOTIONS. I . 1 . Some muscular motions are excited by perpetual irritations. 2 . Others more frequently by sensations. 3 . Others by volition. Case of involuntary stretchings in paralytic limbs. 4 . Some sensual motions are excited by perpetual irritations. 5 . Others more frequently by sensation or volition. II . 1 . Muscular motions excited by perpetual irritations occasionally become obedient sensation and to volition. 2 . And the sensual motions. III . 1 . Other muscular motion
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SECT. VIII.
SECT. VIII.
OF SENSITIVE MOTIONS. I . 1 . Sensitive muscular motions were originally excited into action by irritation. 2 . And sensitive sensual motions, ideas of imagination, dreams. II . 1 . Sensitive muscular motions are occasionally obedient to volition. 2 . And sensitive sensual motions. III . 1 . Other muscular motions are associated with the sensitive ones. 2 . And other sensual motions. I . 1 . Many of the motions of our muscles, that are excited into action by irritation, are at the same time acco
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SECT. IX.
SECT. IX.
OF VOLUNTARY MOTIONS. I . 1 . Voluntary muscular motions are originally excited by irritations. 2 . And voluntary ideas. Of reason. II . 1 . Voluntary muscular motions are occasionally causable by sensations. 2 . And voluntary ideas. III . 1 . Voluntary muscular motions are occasionally obedient to irritations. 2 . And voluntary ideas. IV . 1 . Voluntary muscular motions are associated with other muscular motions. 2 . And voluntary ideas. When pleasure or pain affect the animal system, many of i
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SECT. X.
SECT. X.
OF ASSOCIATE MOTIONS. I . 1 . Many muscular motions excited by irritations in trains or tribes become associated. 2 . And many ideas. II . 1 . Many sensitive muscular motions become associated. 2 . And many sensitive ideas. III . 1 . Many voluntary muscular motions become associated. 2 . And then become obedient to sensation or irritation. 3 . And many voluntary ideas become associated. All the fibrous motions, whether muscular or sensual, which are frequently brought into action together, eithe
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SECT. XI.
SECT. XI.
ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE SENSORIAL POWERS. I . Stimulation is of various kinds adapted to the organs of sense, to the muscles, to hollow membranes, and glands. Some objects irritate our senses by repeated impulses. II . 1 . Sensation and volition frequently affect the whole sensorium. 2 . Emotions, passions, appetites. 3 . Origin of desire and aversion. Criterion of voluntary actions, difference of brutes and men. 4 . Sensibility and voluntarity. III . Associations formed before nativity,
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SECT. XII.
SECT. XII.
OF STIMULUS, SENSORIAL EXERTION, AND FIBROUS CONTRACTION. I . Of fibrous contraction. 1 . Two particles of a fibre cannot approach without the intervention of something, as in magnetism, electricity, elasticity. Spirit of life is not electric ether. Galvani's experiments. 2 . Contraction of a fibre. 3 . Relaxation succeeds. 4 . Successive contractions, with intervals. Quick pulse from debility, from paucity of blood. Weak contractions performed in less time, and with shorter intervals. 5 . Last
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SECT. XIII.
SECT. XIII.
OF VEGETABLE ANIMATION. I . 1 . Vegetables are irritable; mimosa, dionæa muscipula. Vegetable secretions. 2 . Vegetable buds are inferior animals, are liable to greater or less irritability. II . Stamens and pistils of plants shew marks of sensibility. III . Vegetables possess some degree of volition. IV . Motions of plants are associated like those of animals. V . 1 . Vegetable structure like that of animals, their anthers and stigmas are living creatures. Male-flowers of Vallisneria. 2 . Wheth
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SECT. XIV.
SECT. XIV.
OF THE PRODUCTION OF IDEAS. I . Of material and immaterial beings. Doctrine of St. Paul. II . 1 . Of the sense of touch. Of solidity. 2 . Of figure. Motion. Time. Place. Space. Number. 3 . Of the penetrability of matter. 4 . Spirit of animation possesses solidity, figure, visibility, &c. Of Spirits and angels. 5 . The existence of external things. III . Of vision. IV . Of hearing. V . Of smell and taste. VI . Of the organ of sense by which we perceive heat and cold, not by the sense of t
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SECT. XV.
SECT. XV.
OF THE CLASSES OF IDEAS. I . 1 . Ideas received in tribes. 2 . We combine them further, or abstract from these tribes. 3 . Complex ideas. 4 . Compounded ideas. 5 . Simple ideas, modes, substances, relations, general ideas. 6 . Ideas of reflexion. 7 . Memory and imagination imperfectly defined. Ideal presence. Memorandum-rings. II . 1 . Irritative ideas. Perception. 2 . Sensitive ideas, imagination. 3 . Voluntary ideas, recollection. 4 . Associated ideas, suggestion. III . 1 . Definitions of perc
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SECT. XVI.
SECT. XVI.
OF INSTINCT. Haud equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis Ingenium, aut rerum fato prudentia major.—Virg. Georg. L. I. 415. I . Instinctive actions defined. Of connate passions. II . Of the sensations and motions of the fœtus in the womb. III . Some animals are more perfectly formed than others before nativity. Of learning to walk. IV . Of the swallowing, breathing, sucking, pecking, and lapping of young animals. V . Of the sense of smell, and its uses to animals. Why cats do not eat their kitte
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SECT. XVII.
SECT. XVII.
THE CATENATION OF MOTIONS. I . 1 . Catenations of animal motion. 2 . Are produced by irritations, by sensations, by volitions. 3 . They continue some time after they have been excited. Cause of catenation. 4 . We can then exert our attention on other objects. 5 . Many catenations of motions go on together. 6 . Some links of the catenations of motions may be left out without disuniting the chain. 7 . Interrupted circles of motion continue confusedly till they come to the part of the circle, where
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SECT. XVIII.
SECT. XVIII.
OF SLEEP. 1 . Volition is suspended in sleep. 2 . Sensation continues. Dreams prevent delirium and inflammation. 3 . Nightmare. 4 . Ceaseless flow of ideas in dreams. 5 . We seem to receive them by the senses. Optic nerve perfectly sensible in sleep. Eyes less dazzled after dreaming of visible objects. 6 . Reverie, belief. 7 . How we distinguish ideas from perceptions. 8 . Variety of scenery in dreams, excellence of the sense of vision. 9 . Novelty of combination in dreams. 10 . Distinctness of
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SECT. XIX.
SECT. XIX.
OF REVERIE. 1 . Various degrees of reverie. 2 . Sleep-walkers. Case of a young lady. Great surprise at awaking. And total forgetfulness of what passed in reverie. 3 . No suspension of volition in reverie. 4 . Sensitive motions continue, and are consistent. 5 . Irritative motions continue, but are not succeeded by sensation. 6 . Volition necessary for the perception of feeble impressions. 7 . Associated motions continue. 8 . Nerves of sense are irritable in sleep, but not in reverie. 9 . Somnambu
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SECT. XX.
SECT. XX.
OF VERTIGO. 1 . We determine our perpendicularity by the apparent motions of objects. A person hood-winked cannot walk in a straight line. Dizziness in looking from a tower, in a room stained with uniform lozenges, on riding over snow. 2 . Dizziness from moving objects. A whirling-wheel. Fluctuations of a river. Experiment with a child. 3 . Dizziness from our own motions and those of other objects. 4 . Riding over a broad stream. Sea-sickness. 5 . Of turning round on one foot. Dervises in Turkey
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SECT. XXI.
SECT. XXI.
OF DRUNKENNESS. 1 . Sleep from satiety of hunger. From rocking children. From uniform sounds. 2 . Intoxication from common food after fatigue and inanition. 3 . From wine or of opium. Chilness after meals. Vertigo. Why pleasure is produced by intoxication, and by swinging and rocking children. And why pain is relieved by it. 4 . Why drunkards stagger and stammer, and are liable to weep. 5 . And become delirious, sleepy, and stupid. 6 . Or make pale urine and vomit. 7 . Objects are seen double. 8
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SECT. XXII.
SECT. XXII.
OF PROPENSITY TO MOTION, REPETITION AND IMITATION. I . Accumulation of sensorial power in hemiplagia, in sleep, in cold fit of fever, in the locomotive muscles, in the organs of sense. Produces propensity to action. II . Repetition by three sensorial powers. In rhimes and alliterations, in music, dancing, architecture, landscape-painting, beauty. III . 1 . Perception consists in imitation. Four kinds of imitation. 2 . Voluntary. Dogs taught to dance. 3 . Sensitive. Hence sympathy, and all our vi
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SECT. XXIII.
SECT. XXIII.
OF THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM. I . The heart and arteries have no antagonist muscles. Veins absorb the blood, propel it forwards, and distend the heart; contraction of the heart distends the arteries. Vena portarum. II . Glands which take their fluids from the blood. With long necks, with short necks. III . Absorbent system. IV . Heat given out from glandular secretions. Blood changes colour in the lungs and in the glands and capillaries. V . Blood is absorbed by veins, as chyle by lacteal vessels,
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SECT. XXIV.
SECT. XXIV.
OF THE SECRETIONS OF SALIVA, AND OF TEARS, AND OF THE LACRYMAL SACK. I . Secretion of saliva increased by mercury in the blood. 1 . By the food in the mouth. Dryness of the mouth not from a deficiency of saliva. 2 . By Sensitive ideas. 3 . By volition. 4 . By distasteful substances. It is secreted in a dilute and saline state. It then becomes more viscid. 5 . By ideas of distasteful substances. 6 . By nausea. 7 . By aversion. 8 . By catenation with stimulating substances in the ear. II . 1 . Sec
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SECT. XXV.
SECT. XXV.
OF THE STOMACH AND INTESTINES. 1 . Of swallowing our food. Ruminating animals. 2 . Action of the stomach. 3 . Action of the intestines. Irritative motions connected with these. 4 . Effects of repletion. 5 . Stronger action of the stomach and intestines from more stimulating food. 6 . Their action inverted by still greater stimuli. Or by disgustful ideas. Or by volition. 7 . Other glands strengthen or invert their motions by sympathy. 8 . Vomiting performed by intervals. 9 . Inversion of the cuta
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SECT. XXVI.
SECT. XXVI.
OF THE CAPILLARY GLANDS AND MEMBRANES. I . 1 . The capillary vessels are glands. 2 . Their excretory ducts. Experiments on the mucus of the intestines, abdomen, cellular membrane, and on the humours of the eye. 3 . Scurf on the head, cough, catarrh, diarrhœa, gonorrhœa. 4 . Rheumatism. Gout. Leprosy. II . 1 . The most minute membranes are unorganized. 2 . Larger membranes are composed of the ducts of the capillaries, and the mouths of the absorbents. 3 . Mucilaginous fluid is secreted on their s
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SECT. XXVII.
SECT. XXVII.
OF HÆMORRHAGES. I . The veins are absorbent vessels. 1 . Hæmorrhages from inflammation. Case of hæmorrhage from the kidney cured by cold bathing. Case of hæmorrhage from the nose cured by cold immersion. II . Hæmorrhage from venous paralysis. Of Piles. Black stools. Petechiæ. Consumption. Scurvy of the lungs. Blackness of the face and eyes in epileptic fits. Cure of hæmorrhages from venous inability. I . As the imbibing mouths of the absorbent system already described open on the surface, and in
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SECT. XXVIII.
SECT. XXVIII.
OF THE PARALYSIS OF THE ABSORBENT SYSTEM. I . Paralysis of the lacteals, atrophy. Distaste to animal food. II . Cause of dropsy. Cause of herpes. Scrophula. Mesenteric consumption. Pulmonary consumption. Why ulcers in the lungs are so difficult to heal. The term paralysis has generally been used to express the loss of voluntary motion, as in the hemiplagia, but may with equal propriety be applied to express the disobediency of the muscular fibres to the other kinds of stimulus; as to those of ir
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SECT. XXIX.
SECT. XXIX.
ON THE RETROGRADE MOTIONS OF THE ABSORBENT SYSTEM. I . Account of the absorbent system. II . The valves of the absorbent vessels may suffer their fluids to regurgitate in some diseases. III . Communication from the alimentary canal to the bladder by means of the absorbent vessels. IV . The phenomena of diabetes explained. V . 1 . The phenomena of dropsies explained. 2 . Cases of the use of foxglove. VI . Of cold sweats. VII . Translations of matter, of chyle, of milk, of urine, operation of purg
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QUERIES.
QUERIES.
1. As the first six of these patients had a due discharge of urine, and of the natural colour, was not the feat of the disease confined to some part of the thorax, and the swelling of the legs rather a symptom of the obstructed circulation of the blood, than of a paralysis of the cellular lymphatics of those parts? 2. When the original disease is a general anasarca, do not the cutaneous lymphatics always become paralytic at the same time with the cellular ones, by their greater sympathy with eac
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SECT. XXX.
SECT. XXX.
PARALYSIS OF THE LIVER AND KIDNEYS. I . 1 . Bile-ducts less irritable after having been stimulated much. 2 . Jaundice from paralysis of the bile-ducts cured by electric shocks. 3 . From bile-stones. Experiments on bile-stones. Oil vomit. 4 . Palsy of the liver, two cases. 5 . Schirrosity of the liver. 6 . Large livers of geese. II . Paralysis of the kidneys. III . Story of Prometheus. I . 1 . From the ingurgitation of spirituous liquors into the stomach and duodenum, the termination of the commo
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SECT. XXXI.
SECT. XXXI.
OF TEMPERAMENTS. I . The temperament of decreased irritability known by weak pulse, large pupils of the eyes, cold extremities. Are generally supposed to be too irritable. Bear pain better than labour. Natives of North-America contrasted with those upon the coast of Africa. Narrow and broad shouldered people. Irritable constitutions bear labour better than pain. II . Temperament of increased sensibility. Liable to intoxication, to inflammation, hæmoptoe, gutta serena, enthusiasm, delirium, rever
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SECT. XXXII.
SECT. XXXII.
DISEASES OF IRRITATION. I . Irritative fevers with strong pulse. With weak pulse. Symptoms of fever, Their source. II . 1 . Quick pulse is owing to decreased irritability . 2 . Not in sleep or in apoplexy. 3 . From inanition. Owing to deficiency of sensorial power. III . 1 . Causes of fever. From defect of heat. Heat from secretions. Pain of cold in the loins and forehead. 2 . Great expense of sensorial power in the vital motions. Immersion in cold water. Succeeding glow of heat. Difficult respi
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SECT. XXXIII.
SECT. XXXIII.
DISEASES OF SENSATION. I . 1 . Motions excited by sensation. Digestion. Generation. Pleasure of existence. Hypochondriacism. 2 . Pain introduced. Sensitive fevers of two kinds. 3 . Two sensorial powers exerted in sensitive fevers. Size of the blood. Nervous fevers distinguished from putrid ones. The septic and antiseptic theory. 4 . Two kinds of delirium. 5 . Other animals are less liable to delirium, cannot receive our contagious diseases, and are less liable to madness. II . 1 . Sensitive moti
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SECT. XXXIV.
SECT. XXXIV.
DISEASES OF VOLITION. I . 1 . Volition defined. Motions termed involuntary are caused by volition. Desires opposed to each other. Deliberation. Ass between two hay-cocks. Saliva swallowed against one's desire. Voluntary motions distinguished from those associated with sensitive motions. 2 . Pains from excess, and from defect of motion. No pain is felt during vehement voluntary exertion; as in cold fits of ague, labour-pains, strangury, tenesmus, vomiting, restlessness in fevers, convulsion of a
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SECT. XXXV.
SECT. XXXV.
DISEASES OF ASSOCIATION. I . 1 . Sympathy or consent of parts. Primary and secondary parts of an associated train of motions reciprocally affect each other. Parts of irritative trains of motion affect each other in four ways. Sympathies of the skin and stomach. Flushing of the face after a meal. Eruption of the small-pox on the face. Chilness after a meal. 2 . Vertigo from intoxication. 3 . Absorption from the lungs and pericardium by emetics. In vomiting the actions of the stomach are decreased
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SECT. XXXVI.
SECT. XXXVI.
OF THE PERIODS OF DISEASES. I . Muscles excited by volition soon cease to contract, or by sensation, or by irritation, owing to the exhaustion of sensorial power. Muscles subjected to less stimulus have their sensorial power accumulated. Hence the periods of some fevers. Want of irritability after intoxication. II . 1 . Natural actions catenated with daily habits of life. 2 . With solar periods. Periods of sleep. Of evacuating the bowels. 3 . Natural actions catenated with lunar periods. Menstru
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SECT. XXXVII.
SECT. XXXVII.
OF DIGESTION, SECRETION, NUTRITION. I . Crystals increase by the greater attraction of their sides. Accretion by chemical precipitations, by welding, by pressure, by agglutination. II . Hunger, digestion, why it cannot be imitated out of the body. Lacteals absorb by animal selection or appetency. III . The glands and pores absorb nutritious particles by animal selection. Organic particles of Buffon. Nutrition applied at the time of elongation of fibres. Like inflammation. IV . It seems easier to
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SECT. XXXVIII.
SECT. XXXVIII.
OF THE OXYGENATION OF THE BLOOD IN THE LUNGS, AND IN THE PLACENTA. I . Blood absorbs oxygene from the air, whence phosphoric acid changes its colour, gives out heat, and some phlogistic material, and acquires an ethereal spirit, which is dissipated in fibrous motion. II . The placenta is a pulmonary organ like the gills of fish. Oxygenation of the blood from air, from water, by lungs, by gills, by the placenta; necessity of this oxygenation to quadrupeds, to fish, to the fœtus in utero. Placenta
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SECT. XXXIX.
SECT. XXXIX.
OF GENERATION. It was shewn in Section XV . on the Production of Ideas, that the moving organ of sense in some circumstances resembled the object which produced that motion. Hence it may be conceived, that the rete mucosum, which is the extremity of the nerves of touch, may by imitating the motions of the retina become coloured. And thus, like the fable of the camelion, all animals may possess a tendency to be coloured somewhat like the colours they most frequently inspect, and finally, that col
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SECT. XL.
SECT. XL.
On the OCULAR SPECTRA of Light and Colours, by Dr. R. W. Darwin, of Shrewsbury. Reprinted, by Permission, from the Philosophical Transactions, Vol. LXXVI. p. 313. Spectra of four kinds. 1 . Activity of the retina in vision. 2 . Spectra from defect of sensibility. 3 . Spectra from excess of sensibility . 4 . Of direct ocular spectra. 5 . Greater stimulus excites the retina into spasmodic action. 6 . Of reverse ocular spectra. 7 . Greater stimulus excites the retina into various successive spasmod
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VOL. II. By ERASMUS DARWIN, M.D. F.R.S.
VOL. II. By ERASMUS DARWIN, M.D. F.R.S.
AUTHOR OF THE BOTANIC GARDEN. Principiò cœlum, ac terras, camposque liquentes, Lucentemque globum lunæ, titaniaque astra, Spiritus intùs alit, totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.— Virg. Æn. vi. Earth, on whose lap a thousand nations tread, And Ocean, brooding his prolific bed, Night's changeful orb, blue pole, and silvery zones, Where other worlds encircle other suns, One Mind inhabits, one diffusive Soul Wields the large limbs, and mingles with the whole. LO
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THEIR METHODS OF CURE.
THEIR METHODS OF CURE.
Hæc, ut potero, explicabo; nec tamen, quasi Pythius Apollo, certa ut sint et fixa, quæ dixero; sed ut Homunculus unus e multis probabiliora conjecturâ sequens.— Cic. Tusc. Disp. l. 1. 9....
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PREFACE.
PREFACE.
All diseases originate in the exuberance, deficiency, or retrograde action, of the faculties of the sensorium, as their proximate cause; and consist in the disordered motions of the fibres of the body, as the proximate effect of the exertions of those disordered faculties. The sensorium possesses four distinct powers, or faculties, which are occasionally exerted, and produce all the motions of the fibrous parts of the body; these are the faculties of producing fibrous motions in consequence of i
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ORDO I. Increased Irritation. GENERA.
ORDO I. Increased Irritation. GENERA.
1 . With increased actions of the sanguiferous system. 2 . With increased actions of the secerning system. 3 . With increased actions of the absorbent system. 4 . With increased actions of other cavities and membranes. 5 . With increased actions of the organs of sense....
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ORDO II. Decreased Irritation. GENERA.
ORDO II. Decreased Irritation. GENERA.
1 . With decreased actions of the sanguiferous system. 2 . With decreased actions of the secerning system. 3 . With decreased actions of the absorbent system. 4 . With decreased actions of other cavities and membranes. 5 . With decreased actions of the organs of sense....
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ORDO III. Retrograde Irritative Motions. GENERA.
ORDO III. Retrograde Irritative Motions. GENERA.
1 . Of the alimentary canal. 2 . Of the absorbent system. 3 . Of the sanguiferous system....
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ORDO I. Increased Irritation. GENUS I. With increased Actions of the Sanguiferous System.
ORDO I. Increased Irritation. GENUS I. With increased Actions of the Sanguiferous System.
The irritability of the whole, or of part, of our system is perpetually changing; these vicissitudes of irritability and of inirritability are believed to depend on the accumulation or exhaustion of the sensorial power, as their proximate cause; and on the difference of the present stimulus, and of that which we had previously been accustomed to, as their remote cause. Thus a smaller degree of heat produces pain and inflammation in our hands, after they have been for a time immersed in snow; whi
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Febris irritativa. Irritative fever. This is the synocha of some writers, it is attended with strong pulse without inflammation; and in this circumstance differs from the febris inirritativa of Class I. 2. 1. 1 . which is attended with weak pulse without inflammation. The increased frequency of the pulsation of the heart and arteries constitutes fever; during the cold fit these pulsations are always weak, as the energy of action is then decreased throughout the whole system; and therefore th
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ORDO I. Increased Irritation. GENUS II. With increased Actions of the Secerning System.
ORDO I. Increased Irritation. GENUS II. With increased Actions of the Secerning System.
These are always attended with increase of partial or of general heat; for the secreted fluids are not simply separated from the blood, but are new combinations; as they did not previously exist as such in the blood vessels. But all new combinations give out heat chemically; hence the origin of animal heat, which is always increased in proportion to the secretion of the part affected, or to the general quantity of the secretions. Nevertheless there is reason to believe, that as we have a sense p
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Calor febrilis. The heat in fevers arises from the increase of some secretion, either of the natural fluids, as in irritative fevers; or of new fluids, as in infectious fevers; or of new vessels, as in inflammatory fevers. The pain of heat is a consequence of the increased extension or contraction of the fibres exposed to so great a stimulus. See Class I. 1. 5. 6 . 2 . Rubor febrilis. Febrile redness. When the cold fit of fever terminates, and the pulsations of the heart and arteries become
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ORDO I. Increased Irritation. GENUS III. With increased Actions of the Absorbent System.
ORDO I. Increased Irritation. GENUS III. With increased Actions of the Absorbent System.
These are not attended with so great increase of heat as in the former genus, because the fluids probably undergo less chemical change in the glands of the absorbent system; nor are the glands of the absorbent vessels so numerous or so extensive as those of the secerning ones. Yet that some heat is produced by the increased action of the absorbents appears from the greater general warmth of the skin and extremities of feeble patients after the exhibition of the peruvian bark, and other medicines
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Lingua arida. Dry tongue occurs in those fevers, where the expired air is warmer than natural; and happens to all those, who sleep with their mouths open; the currents of air in respiration increasing the evaporation. There is also a dryness in the mouth from the increased action of the absorbent vessels, when a sloe or a crab-apple are masticated; and after the perforation has been much increased by eating salt or spice, or after other copious secretions; as after drunkenness, cathartics, o
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ORDO I. Increased Irritation. GENUS IV. With increased Actions of other Cavities and Membranes. SPECIES.
ORDO I. Increased Irritation. GENUS IV. With increased Actions of other Cavities and Membranes. SPECIES.
1 . Nictitatio irritativa. Winking of the eyes is performed every minute without our attention, for the purpose of cleaning and moistening the eye-ball; as further spoken of in Class II. 1. 1. 8 . When the cornea becomes too dry, it becomes at the same time less transparent; which is owing to the pores of it being then too large, so that the particles of light are refracted by the edges of each pore, instead of passing through it; in the same manner as light is refracted by passing near the edge
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ORDO I. Increased Irritation. GENUS V. With Increased Actions of the Organs of Sense. SPECIES.
ORDO I. Increased Irritation. GENUS V. With Increased Actions of the Organs of Sense. SPECIES.
1 . Visus acrior. Acuter sight. There have been instances of people, who could see better in the gloom of the evening, than in the stronger light of the day; like owls, and bats, and many quadrupeds, and flying insects. When the eye is inflamed, great light becomes eminently painful, owing to the increased irritative motions of the retina, and the consequent increased sensation. Thus when the eye is dazzled with sudden light, the pain is not owing to the motion of the iris; for it is the contrac
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ORDO II. Decreased Irritation. GENUS I. With decreased Action of the Sanguiferous System.
ORDO II. Decreased Irritation. GENUS I. With decreased Action of the Sanguiferous System.
The reader should be here apprized, that the words strength and debility, when applied to animal motions, may properly express the quantity of resistance such motions may overcome; but that, when they are applied to mean the susceptibility or insusceptibility of animal fibres to motion, they become metaphorical terms; as in Sect. XII. 2. 1. and would be better expressed by the words activity and inactivity. There are three sources of animal inactivity; first, the defect of the natural quantity o
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Febris inirritativa. Inirritative fever. This is the typhus mitior, or nervous fever of some writers; it is attended with weak pulse without inflammation, or symptoms of putridity, as they have been called. When the production of sensorial power in the brain is less than usual, the pulse becomes quick as well as weak; and the heart sometimes trembles like the limbs of old age, or of enfeebled drunkards; and when this force of the contractions of the heart and arteries is diminished, the bloo
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ORDO II. Decreased Irritation. GENUS II. Decreased Action of the Secerning System.
ORDO II. Decreased Irritation. GENUS II. Decreased Action of the Secerning System.
These are always attended with decrease of partial, or of general heat; for as the heat of animal bodies is the consequence of their various secretions, and is perpetually passing away into the ambient air, or other bodies in contact with them; when these secretions become diminished, or cease, the heat of the part or of the whole is soon diminished, or ceases along with them....
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Frigus febrile. Febrile coldness. There is reason to believe, that the beginning of many fever-fits originates in the quiescence of some part of the absorbent system, especially where they have been owing to external cold; but that, where the coldness of the body is not owing to a diminution of external heat, it arises from the inaction of some part of the secerning system. Hence some parts of the body are hot whilst other parts are cold; which I suppose gave occasion to error in Martyn's Ex
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ORDO II. Decreased Irritation. GENUS III. The Decreased Action of the Absorbent System.
ORDO II. Decreased Irritation. GENUS III. The Decreased Action of the Absorbent System.
Some decrease of heat attends these diseases, though in a less degree than those of the last genus, because the absorbent system of glands do not generate so much heat in their healthy state of action as the secerning system of glands, as explained in Class I. 1. 3 ....
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Mucus faucium frigidus. Cold mucus from the throat. Much mucus, of rather a saline taste, and less inspissated than usual, is evacuated from the fauces by hawking, owing to the deficient absorption of the thinner parts of it. This becomes a habit in some elderly people, who are continually spitting it out of their mouths; and has probably been brought on by taking snuff, or smoking tobacco; which by frequently stimulating the fauces have at length rendered the absorbent vessels less excitabl
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ORDO II. Decreased Irritation. GENUS IV. With Decreased Actions of other Cavities and Membranes.
ORDO II. Decreased Irritation. GENUS IV. With Decreased Actions of other Cavities and Membranes.
Many of the diseases of this genus are attended with pain, and with cold extremities, both which cease on the exhibition of wine or opium; which shews, that they originate from deficient action of the affected organ. These pains are called nervous or spasmodic, are not attended with fever, but are frequently succeeded by convulsions and madness; both which belong to the class of volition. Some of them return at periods, and when these can be ascertained, a much less quantity of opium will preven
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Sitis. Thirst. The senses of thirst and of hunger seem to have this connection, that the former is situated at the upper end, and the latter at the lower end of the same canal. One about the pharinx, where the œsophagus opens into the mouth, and the other about the cardia ventriculi, where it opens into the stomach. The extremities of other canals have been shewn to possess correspondent sensibilities, or irritabilities, as the two ends of the urethra, and of the common gall-duct. See IV. 2.
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ORDO II. Decreased Irritation. GENUS V. Decreased Action of the Organs of Sense. SPECIES.
ORDO II. Decreased Irritation. GENUS V. Decreased Action of the Organs of Sense. SPECIES.
1 . Stultitia inirritabilis. Folly from inirritability. Dulness of perception. When the motions of the fibrous extremities of the nerves of sense are too weak to excite sensation with sufficient quickness and vigour. The irritative ideas are nevertheless performed, though perhaps in a feeble manner, as such people do not run against a post, or walk into a well. There are three other kinds of folly; that from deficient sensation, from deficient volition, and from deficient association, as will be
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ORDO III. Retrograde Irritative Motions. GENUS I. Of the Alimentary Canal.
ORDO III. Retrograde Irritative Motions. GENUS I. Of the Alimentary Canal.
The retrograde motions of our system originate either from defect of stimulus, or from defect of irritability. Thus sickness is often induced by hunger, which is a want of stimulus; and from ipecacuanha, in which last case it would seem, that the sickness was induced after the violence of the stimulus was abated, and the consequent torpor had succeeded. Hence spice, opium, or food relieves sickness. The globus hystericus, salivation, diabætes, and other inversions of motion attending hysteric pa
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Ruminatio. In the rumination of horned cattle the retrograde motions of the œsophagus are visible to the eye, as they bring up the softened grass from their first stomach. The vegetable aliment in the first stomach of cattle, which have filled themselves too full of young clover, is liable to run into fermentation, and distend the stomach, so as to preclude its exit, and frequently to destroy the animal. To discharge this air the farmers frequently make an opening into the stomach of the ani
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ORDO III. Retrograde Irritative Motions. GENUS II. Of the Absorbent System. SPECIES.
ORDO III. Retrograde Irritative Motions. GENUS II. Of the Absorbent System. SPECIES.
1 . Catarrhus lymphaticus. Lymphatic catarrh. A periodical defluxion of a thin fluid from the nostrils, for a few hours, occasioned by the retrograde motions of their lymphatics; which may probably be supplied with fluid by the increased absorption of some other lymphatic branches in their vicinity. It is distinguished from that mucous discharge, which happens in frosty weather from decreased absorption, because it is less salt to the taste; and from an increased secretion of mucus, because it i
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ORDO III. Retrograde Irritative Motions. GENUS III. Of the Sanguiferous System. SPECIES.
ORDO III. Retrograde Irritative Motions. GENUS III. Of the Sanguiferous System. SPECIES.
1 . Capillarium motus retrogressus. In microscopic experiments it is usual to see globules of blood regurgitate from the capillary vessels again and again, before they pass through them; and not only the mouths of the veins, which arise from these capillaries, are frequently seen by microscopes to regurgitate some particles of blood during the struggles of the animal; but a retrograde motion of the blood in the veins of these animals, from the very heart to the extremities of the limbs, is obser
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ORDO I. Increased Sensation. GENERA.
ORDO I. Increased Sensation. GENERA.
1 . With increased action of the muscles. 2 . With the production of new vessels by internal membranes or glands with fever. 3 . With the production of new vessels by external membranes or glands with fever. 4 . With the production of new vessels by internal membranes or glands without fever. 5 . With the production of new vessels by external membranes or glands without fever. 6 . With fever consequent to the production of new vessels or fluids. 7 . With increased action of the organs of sense..
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ORDO II. Decreased Sensation. GENERA.
ORDO II. Decreased Sensation. GENERA.
1 . With decreased actions of the general system. 2 . With decreased actions of particular organs....
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ORDO III. Retrograde Sensitive Motions. GENERA.
ORDO III. Retrograde Sensitive Motions. GENERA.
1 . Of the excretory ducts ....
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ORDO I. Increased Sensation. GENUS I. With Increased Action of the Muscles.
ORDO I. Increased Sensation. GENUS I. With Increased Action of the Muscles.
The actions belonging to this genus are those which are immediately excited by the sensations of pain or pleasure, but which are neither followed by inflammation, nor by convulsion. The former of which belong to the subsequent genera of this order, and the latter to the class of voluntary motions. The criterion between the actions, which are the immediate consequence of painful sensation, and convulsive actions properly so called, consists in the former having a tendency to dislodge the stimulat
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Deglutitio. Swallowing our food is immediately caused by the pleasureable sensation occasioned by its stimulus on the palate or fauces and is acquired long before the nativity of the animal. Afterwards the pain of hunger previously produces the various voluntary exertions to procure the proper material, but the actions of masticating and of swallowing it are effected by the sensorial power of sensation; which appears by their not being always controulable by the will, as when children in vai
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ORDO I. Increased Sensation. GENUS II. With the Production of new Vessels by internal Membranes or Glands, with Fever.
ORDO I. Increased Sensation. GENUS II. With the Production of new Vessels by internal Membranes or Glands, with Fever.
In the first class of diseases two kinds of fevers were described, one from excess, and the other from defect of irritation; and were in consequence termed irritative, and inirritative fevers. In this second class of diseases another kind of fever occurs, which is caused by excess of sensation, and termed in consequence Sensitive Fever. But there is no fever from defect of sensation, because the circulation is carried on in health without our consciousness, that is, without any sensation attendi
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Febris sensitiva irritata. Sensitive irritated fever, or inflammatory fever. Phlegmasia. A strong full pulse, with inflammation of the coats of the arteries, constitutes this disease. It originates from some topical inflammation, which, if the fever is not subdued, terminates in suppuration; and differs from irritative fever in respect to the painful sensation which accompanies it. For as pleasurable sensation is the cause of the growth of the new vessels, and distention of the old ones, in
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ORDO I. Increased Sensation. GENUS III. With the Production of new Vessels by external Membranes or Glands with Fever.
ORDO I. Increased Sensation. GENUS III. With the Production of new Vessels by external Membranes or Glands with Fever.
The diseases of this genus are perhaps all productive of contagious matter; or which becomes so by its exposure to the air, either through the cuticle, or by immediate contact with it; such are the matters of the small-pox and measles. The purulent matter formed on parts covered from the air by thicker membranes or muscles, as in the preceding genus, does not induce fever, and cannot therefore be called contagious; but it acquires this property of producing fever in a few hours, after the absces
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Febris sensitiva inirritata. Sensitive inirritated fever. Typhus gravior. Putrid malignant fever. Jail fever. The immediate cause of this disease is the increase of the sensorial power of sensation, joined with the decrease of the sensorial power of irritation; that is, it consists in the febris sensitiva joined with the febris inirritativa of Class I. 2. 1. 1 . as the febris sensitiva irritata of the preceding genus consists of the febris sensitiva joined with the febris irritativa of Class
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ORDO I. Increased Sensation. GENUS IV. With the Production of new Vessels by internal Membranes or Glands, without Fever.
ORDO I. Increased Sensation. GENUS IV. With the Production of new Vessels by internal Membranes or Glands, without Fever.
Where inflammation is produced in a small part, which has not great natural sensibility, the additional sensation does not produce an increased action of the arterial system; that is, the associated motions which are employed in the circulation of the blood, those for instance of the heart, arteries, glands, capillaries, and their correspondent veins, are not thrown into increased action by so small an addition of the sensorial power of sensation. But when parts, which naturally possess more sen
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Ophthalmia superficialis. As the membranes, which cover the eye, are excluded from the air about one third part of the twenty-four hours; and are moistened by perpetual nictitation during the other sixteen; they may be considered as internal membranes; and from the analogy of their inflammation to that of other internal membranes, it is arranged under this genus; whilst the tonsillitis is esteemed an inflammation of an external membrane, because currents of air are perpetually passing both d
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ORDO I. Increased Sensation. GENUS V. With the Production of new Vessels by external Membranes or Glands, without Fever.
ORDO I. Increased Sensation. GENUS V. With the Production of new Vessels by external Membranes or Glands, without Fever.
The ulcers, or eruptions, which are formed on the external skin, or on the mouth or throat, or on the air-cells of the lungs, or on the intestines, all of which are more or less exposed to the contact of the atmospheric air, which we breathe, and which in some proportion we swallow with our food and saliva; or to the contact of the inflammable air, or hydrogen, which is set at liberty by the putrefying aliment in the intestines, or by putrefying matter in large abscesses; all of them produce con
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Gonorrhœa venerea. A pus-like contagious material discharged from the urethra after impure cohabitation, with smarting or heat on making water; which begins at the external extremity of the urethra, to which the contagious matter is applied, and where it has access to the air. M. M. In this state of the venereal disease once venesection, with mild cathartics of senna and manna, with mucilage, as almond emulsion, and gum arabic, taken for two or three weeks, absolve the cure. Is camphor of us
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ORDO I. Increased Sensation. GENUS VI. With Fever consequent to the Production of new Vessels or Fluids. SPECIES.
ORDO I. Increased Sensation. GENUS VI. With Fever consequent to the Production of new Vessels or Fluids. SPECIES.
1 . Febris sensitiva. Sensitive fever, when unmixed with either irritative or inirritative fever, may be distinguished from either of them by the less comparative diminution of muscular strength; or in other words, from its being attended with less diminution of the sensorial power of irritation. An example of unmixed sensitive fever may generally be taken from the pulmonary consumption; in this disease patients are seen to walk about with ease, and to do all the common offices of life for weeks
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ORDO I. Increased Sensation. GENUS VII. With increased Action of the Organs of Sense. SPECIES.
ORDO I. Increased Sensation. GENUS VII. With increased Action of the Organs of Sense. SPECIES.
1 . Delirium febrile. Paraphrosyne. The ideas in delirium consist of those excited by the sensation of pleasure or pain, which precedes them, and the trains of other ideas associated with these, and not of those excited by external irritations or by voluntary exertion. Hence the patients do not know the room which they inhabit, or the people who surround them; nor have they any voluntary exertion, where the delirium is complete; so that their efforts in walking about a room or rising from their
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ORDO II. Decreased Sensation. GENUS I. Of the General System. SPECIES.
ORDO II. Decreased Sensation. GENUS I. Of the General System. SPECIES.
1 . Stultitia insensibilis. Folly from insensibility. The pleasure or pain generated in the system is not sufficient to promote the usual activity either of the sensual or muscular fibres. 2 . Tædium vitæ. Ennui. Irksomeness of life. The pain of laziness has been thought by some philosophers to be that principle of action, which has excited all our industry, and distinguished mankind from the brutes of the field. It is certain that, where the ennui exists, it is relieved by the exertions of our
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ORDO II. Decreased Sensation. GENUS II. Of Particular Organs. SPECIES.
ORDO II. Decreased Sensation. GENUS II. Of Particular Organs. SPECIES.
1 . Anorexia. Want of appetite. Some elderly people, and those debilitated by fermented liquors, are liable to lose their appetite for animal food; which is probably in part owing to the deficiency of gastric acid, as well as to the general decay of the system: elderly people will go on years without animal food; but inebriates soon sink, when their digestion becomes so far impaired. Want of appetite is sometimes produced by the putrid matter from many decaying teeth being perpetually mixed with
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ORDO III. Retrograde Sensitive Motions. GENUS I. Of Excretory Ducts.
ORDO III. Retrograde Sensitive Motions. GENUS I. Of Excretory Ducts.
The retrograde action of the œsophagus in ruminating animals, when they bring up the food from their first stomach for the purpose of a second mastication of it, may probably be caused by agreeable sensation; similar to that which induces them to swallow it both before and after this second mastication; and then this retrograde action, properly belongs to this place, and is erroneously put at the head of the order of irritative retrograde motions. Class I. 3. 1. 1 ....
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Ureterum motus retrogressus. When a stone has advanced into the ureter from the pelvis of the kidney, it is sometimes liable to be returned by the retrograde motion of that canal, and the patient obtains fallacious ease, till the stone is again pushed into the ureter. 2 . Urethræ motus retrogressus. There have been instances of bougies being carried up the urethra into the bladder most probably by an inverted motion of this canal; for which some have undergone an operation similar to that fo
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ORDO I. Increased Volition. GENERA.
ORDO I. Increased Volition. GENERA.
1 . With increased actions of the muscles. 2 . With increased actions of the organs of sense....
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ORDO II. Decreased Volition. GENERA.
ORDO II. Decreased Volition. GENERA.
1 . With decreased actions of the muscles. 2 . With decreased actions of the organs of sense....
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ORDO I. Increased Volition. GENUS I. Increased Actions of the Muscles.
ORDO I. Increased Volition. GENUS I. Increased Actions of the Muscles.
We now step forward to consider the diseases of volition, that superior faculty of the sensorium, which gives us the power of reason, and by its facility of action distinguishes mankind from brute animals; which has effected all that is great in the world, and superimposed the works of art on the situations of nature. Pain is introduced into the system either by excess or defect of the action of the part. (Sect. IV. 5.) Both which circumstances seem to originate from the accumulation of sensoria
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Jactitatio. Restlessness. There is one kind of restlessness attending fevers, which consists in a frequent change of posture to relieve the uneasiness of the pressure of one part of the body upon another, when the sensibility of the system, or of some parts of it, is increased by inflammation, as in the lumbago; which may sometimes be distinguished in its early stage by the incessant desire of the patient to turn himself in bed. But there is another restlessness, which approaches towards wri
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ORDO I. Increased Volition. GENUS II. With increased Actions of the Organs of Sense.
ORDO I. Increased Volition. GENUS II. With increased Actions of the Organs of Sense.
In every species of madness there is a peculiar idea either of desire or aversion, which is perpetually excited in the mind with all its connections. In some constitutions this is connected with pleasurable ideas without the exertion of much muscular action, in others it produces violent muscular action to gain or avoid the object of it, in others it is attended with despair and inaction. Mania is the general word for the two former of these, and melancholia for the latter; but the species of th
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Mania mutabilis. Mutable madness. Where the patients are liable to mistake ideas of sensation for those from irritation, that is, imaginations for realities, if cured of one source of insanity, they are liable in a few months to find another source in some new mistaken or imaginary idea, and to act from this new idea. The idea belongs to delirium, when it is an imaginary or mistaken one; but it is the voluntary actions exerted in consequence of this mistaken idea, which constitute insanity.
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ORDO II. Decreased Volition. GENUS I. With decreased Actions of the Muscles.
ORDO II. Decreased Volition. GENUS I. With decreased Actions of the Muscles.
Our muscles become fatigued by long contraction, and cease for a time to be excitable by the will; owing to exhaustion of the sensorial power, which resides in them. After a short interval of relaxation the muscle regains its power of voluntary contraction; which is probably occasioned by a new supply of the spirit of animation. In weaker people these contractions cease sooner, and therefore recur more frequently, and are attended with shorter intervals of relaxation, as exemplified in the quick
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Lassitudo. Fatigue or weariness after much voluntary exertion. From the too great expenditure of sensorial power the muscles are with difficulty brought again into voluntary contraction; and seem to require a greater quantity or energy of volition for this purpose. At the same time they still remain obedient to the stimulus of agreeable sensation, as appears in tired dancers finding a renovation of their aptitude to motion on the acquisition of an agreeable partner; or from a tired child rid
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ORDO II. Decreased Volition. GENUS II. With decreased Actions of the Organs of Sense. SPECIES.
ORDO II. Decreased Volition. GENUS II. With decreased Actions of the Organs of Sense. SPECIES.
1 . Recollectionis jactura. Loss of recollection. This is the defect of memory in old people, who forget the actions of yesterday, being incapable of voluntary recollection, and yet remember those of their youth, which by frequent repetition are introduced by association or suggestion. This is properly the paralysis of the mind; the organs of sense do not obey the voluntary power; that is, our ideas cannot be recollected, or acted over again by the will. After an apoplectic attack the patients,
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The Orders and Genera of the Fourth Class of Diseases. CLASS IV. DISEASES OF ASSOCIATION. ORDO I. Increased Associate Motions. GENERA.
The Orders and Genera of the Fourth Class of Diseases. CLASS IV. DISEASES OF ASSOCIATION. ORDO I. Increased Associate Motions. GENERA.
1 . Catenated with irritative motions. 2 . Catenated with sensitive motions. 3 . Catenated with voluntary motions. 4 . Catenated with external influences....
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ORDO II. Decreased Associate Motions. GENERA.
ORDO II. Decreased Associate Motions. GENERA.
1 . Catenated with irritative motions. 2 . Catenated with sensitive motions. 3 . Catenated with voluntary motions. 4 . Catenated with external influences....
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ORDO III. Retrograde Associate Motions. GENERA.
ORDO III. Retrograde Associate Motions. GENERA.
1 . Catenated with irritative motions. 2 . Catenated with sensitive motions. 3 . Catenated with voluntary motions. 4 . Catenated with external influences....
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ORDO I. Increased Associate Motions. GENUS I. Catenated with Irritative Motion.
ORDO I. Increased Associate Motions. GENUS I. Catenated with Irritative Motion.
The importance of the subsequent class not only consists in its elucidating all the sympathetic diseases, but in its opening a road to the knowledge of fever . The difficulty and novelty of the subject must plead in excuse for the present imperfect state of it. The reader is entreated previously to attend to the following circumstances for the greater facility of investigating their intricate connections; which I shall enumerate under the following heads. A. Associate motions distinguished from
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Rubor vultûs prandorum. Flushing of the face after dinner is explained in Sect. XXXV. 1. In the beginning of intoxication the whole skin becomes florid from the association of the actions of the cutaneous arteries with those of the stomach, because vinous spirit excites the fibres of the stomach into more violent action than the stimulus of common food; and the cutaneous capillaries of the face, from their more frequent exposure to the vicissitudes of cold and heat, possess more mobility or
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ORDO I. Increased Associate Motions. GENUS II. Catenated with Sensitive Motions.
ORDO I. Increased Associate Motions. GENUS II. Catenated with Sensitive Motions.
The primary links of the associated actions of this genus are either produced or attended by painful or pleasurable sensation. The secondary links of the first ten species are attended with increased motions without inflammation, those of the remainder are attended with inflammation. All inflammations, which do not arise in the part which was previously torpid, belong to this genus; as the gout, rheumatism, erysipelas. It is probable many other inflammations may, by future observation, require t
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Lacrymarum fluxus sympatheticus. A flow of tears from grief or joy. When the termination of the duct of the lacrymal sac in the nostrils becomes affected either by painful or pleasurable sensations, in consequence of external stimulus, or by its association with agreeable or disagreeable ideas, the motions of the lacrymal gland are at the same time exerted with greater energy, and a profusion of tears succeeds by sensitive association, as explained in Sect. XVI. 8. 2. In this case there exis
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ORDO I. Increased Associate Motions. GENUS III. Catenated with Voluntary Motions SPECIES.
ORDO I. Increased Associate Motions. GENUS III. Catenated with Voluntary Motions SPECIES.
1 . Deglutitio invita. When any one is told not to swallow his saliva, and that especially if his throat be a little sore, he finds a necessity of immediately swallowing it; and this the more certainly, the more he voluntarily endeavours not to do so. In this case the voluntary power exerted by our attention to the pharinx renders it more sensible to irritation, and therefore occasions it to be more frequently induced to swallow the saliva. Here the irritation induces a volition to swallow it, w
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ORDO I. Increased Associate Motions. GENUS IV. Catenated with External Influences. SPECIES.
ORDO I. Increased Associate Motions. GENUS IV. Catenated with External Influences. SPECIES.
1 . Vita ovi. Life of an egg. The eggs of fowls were shewn by Mr. J. Hunter to resist the freezing process in their living state more powerfully, than when they were killed by having the yolk and white shook together. Philos. Trans. It may be asked, does the heat during the incubation of eggs act as a stimulus exciting the living principle into activity? Or does it act simply as a causa sine quâ non, as an influence, which penetrating the mass, removes the particles of it to a greater distance f
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ORDO II. Decreased Associate Motions. GENUS I. Catenated with Irritative Motions.
ORDO II. Decreased Associate Motions. GENUS I. Catenated with Irritative Motions.
As irritative muscular motions are attended with pain, when they are exerted too weakly, as well as when they are exerted too strongly; so irritative ideas become attended with sensation, when they are exerted too weakly, as well as when they are exerted too strongly. Which accounts for these ideas being attended with sensation in the various kinds of vertigo described below. There is great difficulty in tracing the immediate cause of the deficiences of action of some links of the associations o
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Cutis frigida pransorum. Chillness after dinner frequently attends weak people, or those who have been exhausted by exercise; it arises from the great expenditure of the sensorial power on the organs of digestion, which are stimulated into violent action by the aliment; and the vessels of the skin, which are associated with them, become in some measure torpid by reverse sympathy; and a consequent chillness succeeds with less absorption of atmospheric moisture. See the subsequent article. 2 .
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ORDO II. Decreased Associate Motions. GENUS II. Catenated with Sensitive Motions.
ORDO II. Decreased Associate Motions. GENUS II. Catenated with Sensitive Motions.
In this genus the sensorial power of association is exerted with less energy, and thence the actions produced by it are less than natural; and pain is produced in consequence, according to the fifth law of animal causation, Sect. IV. This pain is generally attended with coldness of the affected part, and is seldom succeeded by inflammation of it. This decreased action of the secondary link of the associated motions, belonging to this genus, is owing to the previous exhaustion of sensorial power
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Torpor genæ a dolore dentis. In tooth-ach there is generally a coldness of the cheek, which is sensible to the hand, and is attended in some degree with the pain of cold. The cheek and tooth have frequently been engaged in pleasurable action at the same time during the masticating of our food; whence they have acquired sensitive associations. The torpor of the cheek may have for its cause the too great expenditure of sensorial power by the painful sensation of the membranes of the diseased t
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ORDO II. Decreased Associate Motions. GENUS III. Catenated with Voluntary Motions. SPECIES.
ORDO II. Decreased Associate Motions. GENUS III. Catenated with Voluntary Motions. SPECIES.
1 . Titubatio linguæ. Impediment of speech is owing to the associations of the motions of the organs of speech being interrupted or dissevered by ill-employed sensation or sensitive motions, as by awe, bashfulness, ambition of shining, or fear of not succeeding, and the person uses voluntary efforts in vain to regain the broken associations, as explained in Sect. XVII. 1. 10. and XVII. 2. 10. The broken association is generally between the first consonant and the succeeding vowel; as in endeavou
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ORDO II. Decreased Associate Motions. GENUS IV. Catenated with External Influences.
ORDO II. Decreased Associate Motions. GENUS IV. Catenated with External Influences.
As the diseases, which obey solar or lunar periods, commence with torpor or inactivity, such as the cold paroxysms of fevers, the torpor and consequent pain of hemicrania, and the pains which precede the fits of epilepsy and convulsion, it would seem, that these diseases are more generally owing to the diminution than to the excess of solar or lunar gravitation; as the diseases, which originate from the influence of the matter of heat, are much more generally in this country produced by the defe
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Somni periodus. The periods of sleeping and of waking are shortened or prolonged by so many other circumstances in animal life, besides the minute difference between diurnal and nocturnal solar gravitation, that it can scarcely be ascribed to this influence. At the same time it is curious to observe, that vegetables in respect to their times of sleeping more regularly observe the hour of the day, than the presence or absence of light, or of heat, as may be seen by consulting the calendar of
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ORDO III. Retrograde Associate Motions. GENUS I. Catenated with Irritative Motions.
ORDO III. Retrograde Associate Motions. GENUS I. Catenated with Irritative Motions.
Those retrograde associate motions, the first links of which are catenated with irritative motions, belong to this genus. All the retrograde motions are consequent to debility, or inactivity, of the organ; and therefore properly belong to the genera of decreased actions both in this and the former classes....
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SPECIES.
SPECIES.
1 . Diabætes irritata. When the absorbents of the intestines are stimulated too strongly by spirit of wine, as in the beginning of drunkenness, the urinary absorbents invert their motions. The same happens from worms in the intestines. In other kinds of diabetes may not the remote cause be the too strong action of the cutaneous absorbents, or of the pulmonary ones? May not in such cases oil externally or internally be of service? or warm bathing for an hour at a time? In hysteric inversions of m
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ORDO III. Retrograde Associate Motions. GENUS II. Catenated with Sensitive Motions. SPECIES.
ORDO III. Retrograde Associate Motions. GENUS II. Catenated with Sensitive Motions. SPECIES.
1 . Nausea idealis. Nausea from disgustful ideas, as from nauseous stories, or disgustful sights, or smells, or tastes, as well as vomiting from the same causes, consists in the retrograde actions of the lymphatics of the throat, and of the œsophagus, and stomach; which are associated with the disgustful ideas, or sensual motions of sight, or hearing, or smell, or taste; for as these are decreased motions of the lymphatics, or of the œsophagus, or stomach, they cannot immediately be excited by t
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ORDO III. Retrograde Associate Motions. GENUS III. Catenated with Voluntary Motions. SPECIES.
ORDO III. Retrograde Associate Motions. GENUS III. Catenated with Voluntary Motions. SPECIES.
1 . Ruminatio. In the rumination of horned cattle the food is brought up from the first stomach by the retrograde motions of the stomach and œsophagus, which are catenated with the voluntary motions of the abdominal muscles. 2 . Vomitio voluntaria. Voluntary vomiting. Some human subjects have been said to have obtained this power of voluntary action over the retrograde motions of the stomach and œsophagus, and thus to have been able to empty their stomach at pleasure. See Sect. XXV. 6. This volu
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ORDO III. Retrograde Associate Motions. GENUS. IV. Catenated with External Influences. SPECIES.
ORDO III. Retrograde Associate Motions. GENUS. IV. Catenated with External Influences. SPECIES.
1 . Catarrhus periodicus. Periodical catarrh is not a very uncommon disease; there is a great discharge of a thin saline mucous material from the membranes of the nostrils, and probably from the maxillary and frontal sinuses, which recur once a day at exact solar periods; unless it be disturbed by the exhibition of opium; and resembles the periodic cough mentioned below. See Class I. 3. 2. 1 . It is probably owing to the retrograde action of the lymphatics of the membranes affected, and produced
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Sympathetic Theory of Fever.
Sympathetic Theory of Fever.
As fever consists in the increase or diminution of direct or reverse associated motions, whatever may have been the remote cause of them, it properly belongs to the fourth class of diseases; and is introduced at the end of the class, that its great difficulties might receive elucidation from the preceding parts of it. These I shall endeavour to enumerate under the following heads, trusting that the candid reader will discover in these rudiments of the theory of fever a nascent embryon, an infant
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ADDITION I.
ADDITION I.
At the end of the article Canities, in Class I. 2. 2. 11 . please to add the following: As mechanical injury from a percussion, or a wound, or a caustic, is liable to occasion the hair of the part to become grey; so I suspect the compression of parts against each other of some animals in the womb is liable to render the hair of those parts of a lighter colour; as seems often to occur in black cats and dogs. A small terrier bitch now stands by me, which is black on all those parts, which were ext
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ADDITION II.
ADDITION II.
The following extract from a letter of Dr. Beddoes on hydrocephalus internus, I esteem a valuable addition to the article on that subject at Class I. 2. 3. 12 . "Master L——, aged 9 years, became suddenly ill in the night about a week before I saw him. On the day before the attack, he had taken opening medicines, and had bathed afterwards. He had complained of violently acute pain in his head, shrieked frequently, ground his teeth hard, could not bear to have his head raised from the pillow, and
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ADDITION III. On Vertigo.
ADDITION III. On Vertigo.
To be placed after the additional Note at the end of Vol. I. on this Subject. Having reperused the ingenious Essay of Dr. Wells on Single Vision, and his additional observations in the Gentleman's Magazine on the apparent retrogression of objects in vertigo, I am induced to believe, that this apparent retrogression of objects is not always owing to the same cause. When a person revolves with his eyes closed, till he becomes vertiginous, and then stands still without opening them, he seems for a
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ADDITION IV. Of Voluntary Motions.
ADDITION IV. Of Voluntary Motions.
A correspondent acquaints me, that he finds difficulty in understanding how the convulsions of the limbs in epilepsy can be induced by voluntary exertions. This I suspect first to have arisen from the double meaning of the words "involuntary motions;" which are sometimes used for those motions, which are performed without the interference of volition, as the pulsations of the heart and arteries; and at other times for those actions, which occur, where two counter volitions oppose each other, and
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ADDITION V. Of Figure.
ADDITION V. Of Figure.
I feel myself much obliged by the accurate attention given to the first volume of Zoonomia, and by the ingenious criticisms bestowed on it, by the learned writers of that article both in the Analytical and English Reviews. Some circumstances, in which their sentiments do not accord with those expressed in the work, I intend to reconsider, and to explain further at some future time. One thing, in which both these gentlemen seem to dissent from me, I shall now mention, it is concerning the manner,
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ADDITION VI.
ADDITION VI.
Please to add the following in page 14, after line 20 . Cold and hot Fit. As the torpor, with which a fit of fever commences, is sometimes owing to defect of stimulus, as in going into the cold-bath; and sometimes to a previous exhaustion of the sensorial power by the action of some violent stimulus, as after coming out of a hot room into cold air; a longer time must elapse, before there can be a sufficient accumulation of sensorial power to produce a hot fit in one case than in the other. Becau
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ADDITION VII. On Warmth.
ADDITION VII. On Warmth.
To be added at the end of the Species Sudor Calidus, in Class I. 1. 2. 3 . When the heat of the body in weak patients in fevers is increased by the stimulus of the points of flannel, a greater consequent debility succeeds, than when it is produced by the warmth of fire; as in the former the heat is in part owing to the increased activity of the skin, and consequent expenditure of sensorial power; whereas in the latter case it is in part owing to the influx of the fluid matter of heat. So the war
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ADDITION VIII. Puerperal Fever.
ADDITION VIII. Puerperal Fever.
To be added to Class II. 1. 6. 16 . A very interesting account of the puerperal fever, which was epidemic at Aberdeen, has been lately published by Dr. Alexander Gordon. (Robinson, London.) In several dissections of those, who died of this disease, purulent matter was found in the cavity of the abdomen; which he ascribes to an erysipelatous inflammation of the peritonæum, as its principal seat, and of its productions, as the omentum, mesentery, and peritonæal coat of the intestines. He believes,
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S.P.D. AMICUS.
S.P.D. AMICUS.
CURRUS TRIUMPHALIS MEDICINÆ. Currus it Hygeiæ, Medicus movet arma triumphans, Undique victa fugit lurida turma mali.—— Laurea dum Phœbi viridis tua tempora cingit, Nec mortale sonans Fama coronat opus; Post equitat trepidans, repetitque Senectus in aurem, Voce canens stridulà, "sis memor ipse mori!"...
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PREFACE.
PREFACE.
The Materia Medica includes all those substances, which may contribute to the restoration of health. These may be conveniently distributed under seven articles according to the diversity of their operations. 1. Nutrientia , or those things which preserve in their natural state the due exertions of all the irritative motions. 2. Incitantia , or those things which increase the exertions of all the irritative motions. 3. Secernentia , or those things which increase the irritative motions, which con
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Art. I. NUTRIENTIA.
Art. I. NUTRIENTIA.
I . 1 . Those things, which preserve in their natural state the due exertions of all the irritative motions, are termed nutrientia; they produce the growth, and restore the waste, of the system. These consist of a variety of mild vegetable and animal substances, water, and air. 2 . Where stronger stimuli have been long used, they become necessary for this purpose, as mustard, spice, salt, beer, wine, vinegar, alcohol, opium. Which however, as they are unnatural stimuli, and difficult to manage i
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Art. II. INCITANTIA.
Art. II. INCITANTIA.
I . 1 . Those things, which increase the exertions of all the irritative motions, are termed incitantia. As alcohol, or the spirituous part of fermented liquors, opium, and many drugs, which are still esteemed poisons, their proper doses not being ascertained. To these should be added the exhilarating passions of the mind, as joy, love: and externally the application of heat, electricity, æther, essential oils, friction, and exercise. 2 . These promote both the secretions and absorptions, increa
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Art. III. SECERNENTIA.
Art. III. SECERNENTIA.
I . Those things which increase the irritative motions, which constitute secretion, are termed secernentia; which are as various as the glands, which they stimulate into action. 1 . Diaphoretics, as aromatic vegetables, essential oils, ether, volatile alcali, neutral salts, antimonial preparations, external heat, exercise, friction, cold water for a time with subsequent warmth, blisters, electric fluid. 2 . Sialagogues, as mercury internally, and pyrethrum externally. 3 . Expectorants, as squill
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Art. IV. SORBENTIA.
Art. IV. SORBENTIA.
I . Those things which increase the irritative motions, which constitute absorption, are termed sorbentia; and are as various as the absorbent vessels, which they stimulate into action. 1 . Cutaneous absorption is increased by austere acids, as of vitriol; hence they are believed to check colliquative sweats, and to check the eruption of small-pox, and contribute to the cure of the itch, and tinea; hence they thicken the saliva in the mouth, as lemon-juice, crab-juice, sloes. 2 . Absorption from
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ART. V. INVERTENTIA.
ART. V. INVERTENTIA.
I . Those things, which invert the natural order of the successive irritative motions, are termed invertentia. 1 . Emetics invert the motions of the stomach, duodenum, and œsophagus. 2 . Violent cathartics invert the motions of the lacteals, and intestinal lymphatics. 3 . Violent errhines invert the nasal lymphatics, and those of the frontal and maxillary sinuses. And medicines producing nausea, invert the motions of the lymphatics about the sauces. 4 . Medicines producing much pale urine, as a
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ART. VI. REVERTENTIA.
ART. VI. REVERTENTIA.
I . Those things, which restore the natural order of the inverted irritative motions, are termed Revertentia. 1 . As musk, castor, asafœtida, valerian, essential oils. 2 . Externally the vapour of burnt feathers, of volatile salts, or oils, blisters, sinapisms. These reclaim the inverted motions without increasing the heat of the body above its natural state, if given in their proper doses, as in the globus hystericus, and palpitation of the heart. The incitantia revert these morbid motions more
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Art. VII. TORPENTIA.
Art. VII. TORPENTIA.
I . Those things, which diminish the exertion of the irritative motions, are termed torpentia. 1 . As mucus, mucilage, water, bland oils, and whatever possesses less stimulus than our usual food. Diminution of heat, light, sound, oxygen, and of all other stimuli; venesection, nausea, and anxiety. 2 . Those things which chemically destroy acrimony, as calcareous earth, soap, tin, alcalies, in cardialgia; or which prevent chemical acrimony, as acid of vitriol in cardialgia, which prevents the ferm
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ADDENDA.
ADDENDA.
Page 625, line 1 , after 'number' please to add , 'except when the patient has naturally a pulse slower than usual in his healthy state.' Page 197, after line 8 , please to add , 'Where the difficulty of breathing is very urgent in the croup, bronchotomy is recommended by Mr. Field.' Memoir of a Medical Society, London, 1773, Vol. IV....
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INABILITY TO EMPTY THE BLADDER.
INABILITY TO EMPTY THE BLADDER.
To be introduced at the end of Class III. 2. 1. 6 . on Paralysis Vesicæ Urinariæ. An inability to empty the bladder frequently occurs to elderly men, and is often fatal. This sometimes arises from their having too long been restrained from making water from accidental confinement in public society, or otherwise; whence the bladder has become so far distended as to become paralytic; and not only this, but the neck of the bladder has become contracted so as to resist the introduction of the cathet
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JAMQUE OPUS EXEGI.
JAMQUE OPUS EXEGI.
The work is done!—nor Folly's active rage, Nor Envy's self, shall blot the golden page; Time shall admire, his mellowing touch employ, And mend the immortal tablet, not destroy. OF THE A. Absorption, iv. 2. 1 . —— cutaneous, mucous, cellular, iv. 2. 2 . —— of the veins, iv. 2. 4 . —— of inflamed vessels, iv. 2. 4. 3 . —— of intestines and liver, iv. 2. 5 . —— of venereal ulcers, iv. 2. 7 . —— not increased by cold, iv. 2. 1 . —— increased by opium after evacuation, ii. 2. 1 . Acacia, iv. 3. 5. 2
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