368 PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



to a spasmodic contraction ; and in either way suspend the 

 action of the heart, and occasion syncope. It seems to me 

 probable, that it is a spasmodic contraction of the heart that 

 occasions the intermission of the pulse so frequently accom- 

 panying palpitation and syncope. 



MCLXXXVIII. Though it frequently happens that pal- 

 pitation and syncope arise, as we have said, from the organic 

 affections above mentioned, it is proper to observe that these 

 diseases, even when in a violent degree, do not always depend 

 on such causes acting directly on the heart, but are often 

 dependent on some of those causes which we have mentioned 

 above as acting primarily on the brain. 



MCLXXXIX. I have thus endeavoured to give the 

 pathology of syncope ; and of the cure I can treat very shortly. 



The cases of syncope depending on the second set of causes 

 (MCLXXIV.), and fully recited in MCLXXXV., I suppose 

 to be generally incurable ; as our art, so far as I know, has not 

 yet taught us to cure any one of those several causes of syncoj 

 (MCLXXXV.). 



The cases of syncope depending on the first set of caus< 

 (MCLXXIV.), and whose operations I have endeavoured 

 explain in MCLXXVII. et seq., I hold to be generally 

 curable, either by avoiding the several occasional cause 

 there pointed out, or by correcting the predisponent cau$ 

 (MCLXXXIV.). The latter, I think, may generally be doi 

 by correcting the debility or mobility of the system, by th( 

 means which I have already had occasion to point out in an- 

 other place. 



CHAP. II.OF DYSPEPSIA, OR INDIGESTION. 



MCXC. A want of appetite, a squeamishness, sometimes a 

 vomiting, sudden and transient distentions of the stomach, 

 eructations of various kinds, heart-burn, pains in the region of 

 the stomach, and a bound belly, are symptoms which frequently 

 concur in the same person, and therefore may be presumed to. 

 depend upon one and the same proximate cause. In both 



1 



