424 ANDROPHYSICS. 



often obtained from tonic medicines ; but in the former case, recourse 

 is sometimes had to dividing the nerves. 



The last class of nervous diseases, Spasmi, or spasmodic affec- 

 tions, includes mania, or violent madness ; epilepsy, or the falling 

 sickness, with sudden insensibility, and convulsions ; chorea, or St. 

 Vitus's dance, with frequent convulsive motions of the limbs ; rapha- 

 ma, or cripple disease, with spasms of the joints ; hysteria, or hyste- 

 rics, affecting the whole nervous system ; tetanus, or spasmodic 

 rigidity of the body, including trismus, or the locked jaw; and 

 hydrophobia, caused by the bite of a rabid animal, but characterized 

 by dread and loathing of water. In this class of diseases, we may 

 also place asthma, or difficult respiration at intervals, with cough 

 and stricture across the breast ; dyspnoea, or difficult respiration, 

 and cough, without a sense of pressure ; pertussis, or whooping 

 cough ; asphyxia, or suspended animation, as by suffocation or 

 drowning; angina pectoris, or spasms of the chest, usually caused 

 by some disease of the heart ; colic, or spasmodic pains in the abdo- 

 men, usually caused by irritation of the stomach or bowels; and 

 cholera, or spasmodic vomitings and purgings, probably caused by 

 derangement of the liver. 



5. In our last division, Secretive Diseases, we would include 

 various disorders of the absorbent, secretive, and assimilative func- 

 tions ; affecting different parts of the system. To this class belong 

 most of the Epischeses, or suppressions, and the rfpocenoses, or 

 fluxes, so named by Dr. Cullen. Of the former, are icterus, or 

 jaundice, caused by retention of the bile ; and constipation, or cos- 

 tiveness; and of the latter kind, are ptyalismus, or flow of saliva; 

 ephidrosis, or excessive perspiration ; and diabetes, or excessive secre- 

 tions of the kidneys. Here also we would mention the hydrops, or 

 dropsy, attended with watery swellings ; as hydrocephalus, or dropsy 

 of the brain; hydrothorax, or dropsy of the chest; ascites, or 

 dropsy of the abdomen ; and anasarca, or dropsy of the skin or 

 cellular system. These diseases are said to be best counteracted by 

 venesection and powerful cathartics. 



Last, in this class of diseases, we would place a part of the 

 Cachexise, of Cullen, attributable to morbid humors ; as scrofula, or 

 king's evil, producing external tumors and ulcerations ; scorbutus, 

 or scurvy, with spongy gums, debility, tumors, and ulcers ; ele- 

 phantiasis, producing swollen limbs, and a rough, wrinkled skin ; 

 lepra, or leprosy, producing dry scaly patches on the skin ; psora, 

 or the itch, produced by small insects penetrating the skin ; tinea, 

 or scald head, causing ulcers and scabs at the root of the hair ; and 

 plica, or trichoma, a disease in which the blood flows from the hair ; 

 all of which might have been classed with eruptive diseases, but are 

 not usually attended with sensible inflammation. Bronchocele, or 

 the goitre, producing a large tumor in the throat; scirrhus, or a 

 hard glandular tumor, often resulting in a cancer; exostosis, a tumor 

 or morbid enlargement of a bone ; and caries, or decay of the 

 bones, are the last diseases which we have room here to name ; 

 reserving for Surgery the mention of those which are curable chiefly 

 by surgical operations. 



