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by a causation peculiar to the properties of this seat; secondary, 

 as when disease is extended from the original, to a related seat; 

 general, as when, in some form, few parts of the system are exempt 

 from it; accidental or foreign, as when disease is produced by 

 external agents, which are related with properties common to the 

 healthy condition of the species, as in the instances of wounds, 

 poisons, &c.; spontaneous, as when disease happens without any 

 external assignable cause, or as when it is excited by a natural 

 cause, as air, food, &c. operating upon a state of constitution 

 which does not belong to the healthy condition of the species. 

 Of these classes, our principal business at present is with spon- 

 taneous disease. 



8. Before we enter upon the discussion of the general origin 

 of spontaneous disease it will be proper to give an instance of it, 

 which will serve the purpose of illustrating our reasonings without 

 the necessity of a frequent appeal to examples. A person attains 

 the age of twenty, enjoying generally good health: at this time a 

 slight cough occurs; the action of the heart becomes a little 

 quickened; the temperature of the skin is irregular, sometimes 

 cold with slight rigours; these succeeded by flushes of heat, and 

 the blood forced into the cutaneous vessels of the face (or rather 

 admitted by their preternatural dilatation) gives a vermilion tint 

 which is, perhaps, supposed by the ignorant an indication of 

 health; this, which is a feverish state, continues a short time; the 

 cough becomes more troublesome, the voluntary muscles are 

 sooner fatigued than usual; this debility is increased by periodical 

 sweats, which are perhaps the spontaneous relief of the febrile 1 

 diathesis. The person observes, perhaps in the morning, after a fit 

 of coughing, that the mucus is tinged with blood ; or a little blood, 

 which has been gradually forced up from the lungs during the 

 night, is expectorated with the first effort, appearing io have 

 lodged on the top of the glottis; the fever is now continued, with 

 evening exacerbations, which perhaps terminate by an expectora- 

 tion, in which more blood is perceived ; a pain is felt in the side, 

 the bulk of the body is rapidly dimished; this state continues, the 

 lungs cannot be inflated without exciting pain or cough; the ex- 

 pectoration becomes purulent; the feet swell ; the powers of loco- 

 motion are almost extinct; respiration becomes quick and labo- 

 rious; the pulse is raised perhaps to 160 in a minute ; it may then 

 sink to 70 or 80; the extremities are cold, and the patient dies. 

 This will be recognized as one form of pulmonary consumption; 

 and this is an example among many of spontaneous disease. 



9. These which have been enumerated are the symptoms of 

 the disease; or they are effects, each of which has an history of 

 its own, which we shall thus trace in our analytical method. We 

 have mentioned the cough as the first symptom: this may not he 

 true; but we must begin at some point. What produces the 

 cough? irritation, it will be said, which has its seat in some part 

 of the membrane which lines the trachea, and is continued into 



