‘ah appellation which pathological writers 
‘have never been able to form a’ distinct 
‘conception of, and nosologists have in 
_ vain attempted satisfactorily to define. 
To describe them, as Dr. Beddoes has 
done, is equally inconsistent with the 
spirit of analysis, and the true history of 
those diseases. His description would 
include all automatic motions, and the 
State of fatigue, arising from the occa- 
sional exercise of our perceptive and in- 
tellectual faculties, although these states 
of the system have never been considered 
as related to nervous affections. From 
the little we know of the origin and pro- 
gress of this extensive tribe of fashionable 
-complaints, it does not appear judicious 
to exclude from this class all those irre- 
gular actions of the nerves, in which 
some other part of the system is at all 
concerned, as cause and effect. Our au- 
thor indeed seems convinced of the truth 
of this remark, for he enumerates vari- 
ous cautions against the derangement of 
organs closely connected with the-func- 
tions of the brain. That an over-loaded 
stomach may give rise to frightful dreams 
and delirium ; that hysteria, hypochon- 
diiasis, and epilepsy, are frequently con- 
nected with disorders of the bowels ; that 
mania and melancholia are often brought 
on by intemperance or by fever, &c. are 
facts sufficiently ascertained tor disclaim- 
ing any ground of distinction, criginat- 
ing in the remoteness or the diiferent na- 
ture of the immediate cause of nervous 
_ disorders. Small-pox, our author ob- 
_ serves, is sometimes accompanied with 
convulsions ; is it for that reason to be 
classed. among nervous diseases? No; 
_ but nervous affections, considered asa 
particular class of complaints, are some- 
times induced by smail-pox and other 
‘eruptive fevers, and they do not lose 
their specific character, because the ex- 
citing causes may indeterminately vary 
| in different as weil as in the same sub- 
ject. When we object to Dr. Beddoes’ 
_ definition of nervous disorders, we are 
_ far from intending to substitute another 
» imits place, In order to be consistent, 
_ we do not fee} disposed to exclaim against 
_ nosological histories, and then make a 
feeble attempt to delineate an outline of 
© fanciful characters. It is better to ac- 
_quiesce in the general notion of the vul- 
ge Jooking upon these diseases as re- 
lated more particularly to a certain mo- 
ility of the nervous system, assuming in 
its effects all possible gradations, from 
‘simple frivolity to actual convulsions. 
BEDDOES’ HYGEIA. 
741 
Farther than this’ we conceive oursélves 
unable to penetrate through the medium 
of language. The department of the 
practical physician extends to the vari- 
Ous associations of morbid phenomena, 
which he can discover as’ causes or ef- 
fects of each other, and which he can 
frequently destroy, though unable to 
comprehend distinctly the nature of their 
necessary connexion. We are more dis- 
posed to insist on this point, because we 
are persuaded, that this part of patho- 
logy has suffered much from artificially 
eparating diseases which nature has in- 
dissolubly united, by considering the 
diseases of the mind as diseases sui gene= 
ris, and therefore out of the reach of the 
physical experimentalist. Groundless 
apprehensions of the consequences of 
materialism have operated as a check to 
the natural connexion of these two essen- 
tial elements of rational physiology. 
When dispassionate reasoning has shewn 
the possibility of separating the useful 
application of a salutary doctrine from 
its adventitious abuses, no apology can 
be offered for supporting a view of na- 
tural phenomena, inconsistent with all 
the rules of inductive philosophy. 
After premising these general remarks, 
on the plan which medical. inquirers 
ought to follow in such intricate objects 
of investigation, we feel great pleasure 
in stating, that Dr. Beddoes has present- 
ed his readers with an excellent specimen 
of what may be done by a method ap- 
parently so tedious and unpromising. 
‘The case is that of an intelligent fo- 
reigner, who was afflicted seven years, 
with epileptic fits, and kept an accurgte 
journal of all the circumstances coynect-. 
ed with the accession of diffcrent pa- 
roxysms, as they fell under his own obs 
servation or that of his attendants. 
This account furnishes 2 number of data 
concerning the occasional state of the 
organs of, inteliect, which in ordinary 
practice could hardly be obtained in any 
manner adapted for any useful applica- 
tion: There are numerous dithculties 
in the way. of increasing the number of 
such historical reports. A patient sends 
for a physician as to the regulator of his 
disturbed nerves and broken spirits, 
when the doctor perhaps is hurried from 
house to house, from one case to ano- 
ther, unwilling to listen to long stories 
about dreams, 1everies, stupors, &c. and 
chills his patient in the warmth of his 
narrative zeal. Allowing the possibility, 
that mankind and medical science might 
wok 3 
