522 PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



pulse. With these seemingly mild appearances, there is a great 

 prostration of strength, the force of the animal functions is sud- 

 denly diminished, and the mind is affected with a remarkable 

 despondency. The appetite is lost, a nausea takes place, and a 

 vomiting arises. There is little sleep and it is much disturbed, and 

 very soon a delirium occurs, or a typhomania, that is, a delirium 

 between sleeping and waking. The heat of the body is often 

 moderate, and commonly not equal, and is remarkably less in 

 the lower extremities. The face is seldom flushed, and never 

 much so. The belly is irregular, frequently bound, but some- 

 times there are rather frequent and loose stools. The urine is 

 nearly in its natural state, but rather paler and without sedi- 

 ment. The exacerbations and remissions which take place here 

 are at first very observable, but by degrees they become more 

 obscure. And thus the disease, with respect to its whole dura- 

 tion, draws out to two or three weeks, ancj then terminates with- 

 out any sensible evacuation or crisis. 



" In the whole course of this disease the chief symptoms are 

 such as shew some considerable interruption of the functions of 

 the brain. Thus, the delirium which is of the milder kind, the 

 typhomania, or degree of coma, the carphologia, subsultus ten- 

 dinum, &c. are all evident symptoms of the debility of the ner- 

 vous power ; and this has given occasion to call the disease a 

 nervous fever. I think that the whole phenomena may be ex- 

 plained by a prevailing debility in the energy of the functions 

 of the brain. 



" It has been supposed that Typhus has been observed only 

 in modern times, and that the Febris lenta nervosa arose first in 

 England : it is true indeed that in the years 1720 21, Win- 

 teringham gave the first account of the Febris putrida nervosa ; 

 and Dr. Huxham is perhaps the first who gave us a full account 

 of this disease ; yet the disease was known long before, for early 

 in the sixteenth century the learned Fracastorius published a 

 treatise on the Febris pestilens, in which we find just as clear an 

 account of the disease as we do in Huxham. It is a matter of 

 curiosity to point this out. In his second book, Fracastorius, 

 treating de Febribus contagiosis, and particularly de pestilentibus 

 Febribus, after some general remarks, says 



" ' Jam de accidentibus earum dicatur, quatenus signa, et no- 



