Class II. i . i . 3. OF SENSATION. 1 47 



efientially differ from each other, contrary to the opinion ex- 

 prefled without fufficient confideration in Sec~t. XVIII. 15. 



The patients in the paroxyf as both of humoral and convulflve 

 afthma find relief from cold air, as they generally rife out of 

 bed, and open the window, and put out their heads ; for the 

 lungs are not ferifible to cold, and the fenfe of fufFocation is fome- 

 what relieved by there being more oxygen contained in a given 

 quantity of cold frefh air, than in the warm confined air of a 

 clofe bed-chamber. 



I have (een humoral afthma terminate in confirmed anafarca 

 and deftroy the patient, who had been an excefiive drinker of 

 fpirituous potation. And M. Savage afferts, that this dif. 

 frequently terminates in diabetes j which feems to fhew, that it is 

 a temporary dropfy relieved by a great flow of urine. Add to 

 this, that thefe paroxyfms of the afthma are themfelves relieved 

 by profufe fweats of the upper parts of the body, as explained in 

 Ciafs I. 3. 2. 8. which would countenance the idea of their be- 

 ing occafioned by congeltions of lymph in the lungs. 



The congeftion of lymph in the lungs from the defective ab- 

 forption of it is probably the remote caufe of humoral afthma; 

 but the pain of fufFocation is the immediate caufe of the violent 

 exertions in the paroxyfms. And whether this congeftion of 

 lymph in the air-cells of the lungs increafes during our fleep, as 

 above fuggefted, or nor ; the pain of fufFocation will be mere 

 and more diftrefhng after fome hours of fleep, as the fenfibiiity 

 to internal ftimuli increafes during that time, as defcribed in 

 Seel. XVIII. 15. For the fame reafon many epileptic fits, and 

 paroxyfms of the gout, cccur during fleep. 



In two gouty cafes, complicated with jaundice, and pain, and 

 ficknefs, the patients had each of them a fhivering fit, like the 

 commencement of an ague, to the great alarm of their friends ; 

 both which commenced in the night, I fuppofe during their 

 ileep ; and the confequence was a ceflation of the jaundice, and 

 pain about the ftomach, and ficknefs; and inftead of that the 

 gout appeared in their extremities. In thefe cafes I conjecture, 

 that there was a metaftafis not only of the dileafed action from 

 the membranes of the liver to thofe of the foot ; but that fome 

 of the new vefTels, or new fluids, which were previoufly produ- 

 ced in the inflamed liver, were tranfjated to the feet during the 

 cold fit, by the increafed abforption of the hepatic lymphatics, 

 and by the retrograde motions of thofe of the affected limbs. 



This I think refembles.in fome refpecls a fit of humoral afth- 

 ma, where ftronger motions of the abforbent vefTels of the lungs 

 are excited, and retrograde ones of the correfpondent cutaneo-is 

 ■lymphatics ; whence the violent fweats of the upper parts of the 



body 



