vi ip ee oe 
people, had this great Mafter of human nature been cotem porary with us, 
No man, I believe, but the profeffonally envious, will prefume to queftion 
his medical abilities, or prefcribe limits to his phyfical knowledge, which 
eclipfed the practice of every phyfician of his day, and put to filence the 
whole tribe of empircs and quacks. I cannot give a higher proof of his 
profeffional difcernment, nor any thing more applicable to the anxious : 
feelings of my reader, than by thewing how exactly he has pointed out 
the diforder with which his Majefty was lately affli@ed, and the fim ples 
which are applicable to its feveral ftages, fo exact and Critical, that if he 
had been living, and appointed one of the confulting phylficians, he 
could not have marked the outline of it with more precifion, 
He diftinguithes difeafes which produce phrenzy into three different — 
clafles ; the fecond he terms peripbrenetio. He defcribes it thus: « It 
is preceded by a very tharp fever, which will rage fora few days violently: 
when it fubfides, the delirium takes place, with fits of the fever at irre- 
gular intervals ; the patient will be remarkably voracious ; all his paflions 
will be very ftrong ; his lucid intervals thort ; his fleep feemingly of a 
long duration, but, in fact, this fleep is nothing but dofing ; when he 
awakes he will feem fully occupied with fome favourite fubject, fuch as 
finging, hunting, dancing, &c. His recolle@icn will fometimes ferve 
him {fo as to know particular perfons, but that will not laft long.” 
_ After having defcribed the effe& of the diforder, he next enters mj- 
| nutely into an inveftigation of the feat of it, And here, with his ufual 
feverity againft his brethren the phyficians, he fays, ¢ ‘They, : OP i 
- Rorant men, think this is a diforder zn the head, whereas, ta 
from an injury which is received in the diaphragm, or midriff. The ufe 
of this membrane is (befides fuftaining the upper parts of the abdomen) 
to convey cooling moifture to the brain, in order to cool the hot hu- 
mours which fly to it from the feveral parts of the inteflines, 
and par- 
7 ticularly 
