146 PHYSIOLOGY. 



that a paroxysm of the gout may often be called a paroxysmus 

 irascendi ; by which he insinuates that the body is so altered as 

 to dispose the mind to irascibility, and that then the same ob- 

 jects are causes of anger or fear which would not have been so 

 at any other time. 



" This will go far in ascertaining the several species of delir- 

 ium. We now go on to consider what may be its causes. 

 Gaubius refers them to different states of the organization of 

 the brain, in 737? where he observes that they may be re- 

 duced to two heads, viz. 1. Those which weaken the sentient 

 power by debilitating the tenor of the brain and the origin of 

 the nerves ; 2. Those which accumulate the blood in the ves- 

 sels of the encephalon ; 3. Those which diminish the mobility 

 of the sentient fibres ; 4. Those which, by irritation, excite ir- 

 regular, inordinate, and impetuous motions in the sensorium 

 commune ; 5. Those which destroy the regular motion of the 

 medullary part by violence on the brain. I say these causes 

 may be reduced to three heads, 1. What may be strictly called 

 a different state of organization of the brain (comprehending 

 the first, third, and fifth head of Gaubius) ; 2. The different 

 state of circulation of the blood (Gaubius's second) ; and, 3. 

 The difference of stimulus (Gaubius's fourth head.). 



" But I proceed to a more fundamental consideration of the 

 state of delirium. The brain certainly is in different states in 

 persons awake and in those who are asleep, that is, in different 

 states of thinking or of not thinking at all (CXXXIIL). I 

 know, indeed, that this last proposition will be disputed by 

 many who are fond of maintaining that the soul always thinks 

 when we sleep. I refuse this ; and allege, that the mind is ab- 

 solutely at rest when the body is sound asleep : we perceive dif- 

 ferent degrees of mental operations in sleep, which are always 

 proportioned to the degree of sleep ; but in the most sound and 

 perfect sleep we have no perception of the operations of the 

 mind at all. But it is not necessary to enter into this discus- 

 sion ; it is enough to our purpose that the mind, in sleep, does 

 not think with regularity, that it does not pursue its ordinary 

 train, that it does not think to the purposes of life, that it ap- 

 proaches to delirium ; and that, therefore, there is a consider- 

 able difference in the thinking of the mind when the body is 



