COMATA. 333 



especially that arising from a crowded assembly of people ; by 

 warm bathing; by intoxication; by long stooping with the head 

 down ; and by a tight ligature about the neck. The disease 

 has been remarked to make its attacks most frequently in the 

 spring season and especially when the vernal heat suddenly 

 succeeds to the winter cold. 



MXCIX. The symptoms denoting the presence of this 

 disease will be sufficiently known from the definition given 

 MXCIV. Although the whole of the body is affected with 

 the loss of sense and motion, it sometimes take place more upon 

 one side of the body than the other ; and, in that case, the side 

 least affected with palsy is sometimes affected with convulsions. 

 In this disease there is often a stertorous breathing ; and this 

 has been said to be a mark of the most violent state of the dis- 

 ease : but it is not always present, even in the most complete 

 form, or most violent degree of the disease. 



MC. The proximate cause of this disease may be, in general, 

 whatever interrupts the motion of the nervous power from the 

 brain to the muscles of voluntary motion ; or, in so far as sense 

 is affected, whatever interrupts the motion of the nervous power 

 from the sentient extremities of the nerves to the brain. 



MCI. Such an interruption of the motions of the nervous 

 power may be occasioned, either by some compression of the 

 origin of the nerves, or by something destroying the mobility 

 of the nervous power. Both these causes we must treat of 

 more particularly ; and, first, of that of compression, seemingly 

 the most frequent occasion of apoplexy, and perhaps the occa- 

 sion of all those apoplexies arising from internal causes. 



" There arises a third set of causes, viz. those which act upon 

 the heart, or, if you will, upon the several functions of the 

 system necessary to support that of the brain: for certain 

 functions of the animal economy, particularly the action of 

 the heart in causing the motion and circulation of the blood, 

 are necessary for the condition of the nervous fluid, and for the 

 proper state of the organization of the brain. It is absolutely 

 necessary to enter into this distinction : but, in considering the 

 affections of the functions of the brain, I shall confine myself 

 to the two first general causes. I abstract, for instance, from 





