238 Facts towards a History of 



It would appear from certain well-known facts, that this 

 hungry sickness is to be found in some portion of the popu- 

 lation of the present day ; and from the strongly marked 

 symptoms that occasionally manifest themselves in corporate 

 bodies, we might further believe that some aldermen are of 

 Syracusan descent. 



That this disease was of great antiquity may be inferred 

 from the circumstance, that the ancient poets made Hunger one 

 of the Pagan deities ; and from the place they assigned to the 

 Pagan god, it would appear that they had adopted their notions 

 from ^^ fames canina'' — for we are told — ** ils la placaient a 

 la porte de I'enfer, avec les maladies, les chagrins, les remords, 

 I'indigence, et les autres maux, qu''ils s'^toient plu adiviniser." 

 A species of ** fames canina*" is also to be met with 

 amongst schoolboys, differing from the Syracusan disease in 

 respect to its affecting the juveniles most when most in health. 

 We remember a gentleman offering a wager, that a boy taken 

 promiscuously from any of the public charity-schools, should, 

 five minutes after his dinner, eat a pound of beef-steaks. 



There is another class of scholastic persons, adults, known 

 in the literary world as poets and critics — who are also 

 troubled with this complaint ; which attracted the attention of 

 one learned person so far, as to suggest the idea of '^ A Trea- 

 tise on Tis- airia ^ovXifAH, or what is the reason Critics are 

 always hungry ? " — ingeniously conjecturing, that a poor au- 

 thor is devoured by them, in proportion to the temporary 

 action of this complaint on their stomachs. 



Sauvages has enumerated seven different species of Bulimy ; 

 but in most of the instances which he has mentioned, it is 

 rather to be regarded as a concomitant of other disorders, than 

 as a distinct and specific affection. 



Ruysch gives an instance of this complaint, which was con- 

 nected with a dilation of the pylorus, in consequence of which, 

 the food slipped through the stomach into the intestines, 

 before there was time for digestion to take place : and it 

 is recorded by Lieutaud, that upon opening the body of a pa- 

 tient who had died of a disorder, in which a voracious appetite 

 was a leading symptom, he discovered a preternatural termi- 

 nation of the ductus choledochus in the' stomach. In this 



