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or any other mechanical impediment, little or nothing, it is 
evident, is to be expected from it. Habitual asthma is. often 
attended with a languid state of the biliary system, and: some 
fullness and tenderness on pressure near the pit of the stomach. 
if the last is considerable, it must be relieved previous to the 
use of the galvanism, Ina paper which the Medico-Chirurgical 
Society did me the honour to publish in the seventh volume or 
their Transactions, I have endeavoured to show that a species 
of pulmonary consumption arises from a disease of the digestive 
organs. Many of the observations there made apply to certain 
cases of asthma* ; I believe to cases of every species of this dis- 
ease, but particularly of that we are here considering. Many 
cases of habitual asthma will yield to the means recommended 
in the above paper; but I have learned, from a pretty extensive 
experience, that a large majority of such cases will resist them, 
yet readily admit of relief from galvanism. If there is little ten- 
dency to inflammation, galvanism seems also to be a means of 
relieving the affection of the digestive organs. I have repeatedly 
seen from it the same effect on the biliary system which arises 
from calomel ; a copious bilious discharge from the bowels com- 
ing on within a few hours after its employment. This seldom 
happeus except where there appears to have been a failure in 
the secreting power of the liver, or a defective action in the gall 
tubes. 
** T have not found that the presence even of a severe cough, 
which is common in habitual asthma, in which there is always 
more or less cough, counter-indicates the use of galvanism. The 
cough under its use generally becomes less frequent in proportion 
as the accumulation of phlegm in the lungs is prevented ; but it 
seems to have no direct effect in allaying it. In some cases the 
cough continued troublesome after the dyspnoea had disappeared. 
Galvanism never appeared to increase it, except when the in- 
flammatory diathesis was considerable. In some labouring un- 
der the most chronic forms of phthisis, in whom the symptoms 
had lasted several years and habitual asthma had supervened, 
the relief obtained from galvanism was very great, notwith- 
standing some admixture of a pus-like substance in what was 
expectorated. I need hardly add, after what has been said, that 
in ordinary cases of phthisis nothing could be more improper "than 
the use of galvanism, The dyspnoea arising from phthisis and 
that from habitual asthma are easily distinguished. |The former 
is less variable. It is generally increased by the exacerbations 
of the fever, and always by exercise. When the patient is still. 
and cool, except in the last stages of phthisis, his breathing is 
* See the observations on the state of these organs in asthma, in Dr. 
Bree’ s work on this disease, 
generally 
