Dr. Yeats on an Affection of the Brain. 9 



easily defined, in the region of the stomach, with a languid and 

 sinking feel there. The tongue exhibited that furred and 

 clammy appearance common in disturbed digestion ; the appe- 

 tite was not impaired, but he felt uneasy after his meals, which 

 induced him to indulge in wine at dinner, as the stimulus of it 

 gave temporary relief; he was troubled with frequent headachs. 

 The bowels were costive, and very irregular in their movements, 

 a properly-figured evacuation being seldom passed, and the 

 passing the contents of the intestines caused uneasy sensations 

 of fulness about the head ; the faeces were likewise very morbid 

 in appearance. The urine was not much altered in quality 

 or quantity ; the pulse did not particularly indicate disease. 

 On examining the abdomen, no fulness was perceptible, but a 

 soreness was complained of, and some hardness felt on pres- 

 sure on the right side, in the region of the liver. He had be- 

 come considerably thinner, and had suffered from the above 

 complaints for a long time, and had taken the advice of several 

 professional gentlemen. By attending to the condition of" 

 the lower intestines and digestive organs, with the proper 

 evacuants and alteratives, more comfortable sensations were 

 acquired there ; but the head now principally arrested attention 

 on account of the great uneasiness complained of in it, which 

 rendered it necessary to have recourse to the local detraction 

 of blood, and to a constant soluble state of the bowels, by 

 cooling laxatives, and a restricted diet. He left town in IMarch, 

 on professional business at Cambridge. 



May 5. — Up to this day I had seen Mr. J— two or 



three times after his return to town. He had been cupped, 

 and bled, and blistered, before and since I saw him, and 

 his bowels had been attended to by evacuants, with very 

 little relief to the affection of the head, beyond some temporary 

 ease, and sometimes without this. At this date. May 5, 1819, 

 the affection of the head had evidently increased ; the pulse 

 had become somewhat quicker and harder, and he described 

 the distress in his head in the following manner : — A pain, 

 with heat, would commence in the back part of it, deep seated, 

 and would be diffused gradually throughout the whole of the 



