60 PHYSIOLOGY. 



states of the body attended with a peculiar uneasiness. I find 

 this not easy, but I have laid a foundation for it in LXXIV. 



" The want of sensation is always uneasy, except when the 

 mind has been fatigued or pained by previous sensations. This is 

 the langueur of the French, which I think the English language 

 has no term to express, for weariness does not convey the idea; 

 however, the English are said to have the feeling, which is said 

 to be the occasion of their so frequently hanging themselves ; 

 but they express it by the Latin term tcedium vitce. The 

 Scotch have a term which expresses this, viz. waff- (a man is 

 waff, and does not know what to do with himself,) plainly 

 derived from the English word to wafe or stray. 



" Tlie sensations of debility and difficulty are also uneasy. 

 We do not always distinguish between the two ; as in debility 

 we have the same sense of weight as from any external cause of 

 difficulty in motion. Thus, in the case of compression of the 

 sciatic nerve, we have the same sensation as from a real weight ap- 

 pended to the foot. The debility and difficulty gives the feel- 

 ing of languor and lassitude, in opposition to that of alacrity and 

 vigour of motion. This may depend upon causes affecting the 

 brain, in consequence of which there is a languor over the whole 

 system, or upon causes affecting the muscular fibres in other 

 parts: in both ways it occurs in the beginning of fevers, espe- 

 cially in those of the nervous kind. 



" Uneasiness is also produced by a sense of difficulty in the 

 exercise of the intellectual functions ; as when the memory 

 fails us, so that we cannot recall the associations of a name 

 or date ; or when we find that we cannot pursue the several re- 

 lations which we had formerly marked, so that our judgment is 

 at a stand ; still further, when other ideas than those of the 

 usual train obtrude themselves : all these are instances of con- 

 fusion in the head, muddiness of the brain, and are the be- 

 ginnings of delirium. 



" Now these are the uneasy feelings referred to the head ; 

 others are referred to the thwax. The various states of diffi- 

 culty of breathing, from whatever cause they proceed, are 

 attended with peculiar uneasiness ; sometimes from a difficulty 

 and resistance to the passage of the blood through the lungs, 

 sometimes from an unfitness of the, external air, sometimes 



