76 Sementini on Coryza Phlegmatica. 



order that it might not mix with his food. Nevertheless, he 

 was not afflicted with head-ache, nor with any uneasy sensa- 

 tion in the fore-part of the head, nor indeed with any of the 

 ordinary phenomena accompanying such diseases. He only 

 lost a little flesh, and in other respects enjoyed perfect health. 



This disease, which, in my time at least, has not been known 

 to occur in Naples, is described by the celebrated Morgagni in 

 his fourteenth Medico-Anatomical Letter, where he treats of 

 the diseases of the head. But the case he describes of a Vene- 

 tian lady, who was affected with it, and cured by him, differs 

 from that which came under my observation, in that the quan- 

 tity of the fluid discharged was not above one half, and that 

 it- continued for near a year, while in my patient it continued 

 only four months ; and because the health of the lady was so 

 sensibly affected by it, as to endanger her life. 



The disease was for a long time treated by me in the accus- 

 tomed derivative method of foot-baths, blisters, sudorifics, 

 purgatives, &c., but in vain. Afterwards, remembering that 

 the afflicted person was subject to the gout, though in an 

 anomalous and irregular form, I was of opinion that a portion 

 of the gouty humour might have affected the olfactory nerves ; 

 and the result of my experience being that no means were 

 more effective than James's antimonial powders to reduce this 

 disease to a state of regularity, and therefore probably to 

 remove this humour from the unaccustomed seat it occupied, 

 I subjected the patient to a course of that medicine. At the 

 end of four days, his head, which had always been free from 

 pain, became slightly affected ; and at length, after profuse 

 perspirations, the disease, which had come suddenly, ceased in 

 a manner quite as sudden. 



The fluid discharged, although transparent and limpid when 

 it first issued from the nostril, soon became turbid, and acquired 

 a light yellow colour, depositing a flocculent animal substance. 

 In its composition, beside the muriate and phosphate of soda, 

 I found a considerable quantity of urate of soda, especially in 

 the flocculent deposit : there was scarcely any free soda. 



