590 PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



every the smallest change of feeling in their bodies ; and from 

 any unusual feeling, perhaps of the slightest kind, they appre- 

 hend great danger, and even death itself. In respect to all these 

 feelings and apprehensions, there is commonly the most obsti- 

 nate belief and persuasion. 



MCCXXIII. This state of mind is the Hypochondriasis of 

 medical writers. See Linnasi Genera Morborum, Gen. 76, et 

 Sagari Systema Symptomaticum, Class XIII. Gen. 5. The 

 same state of mind is what has been commonly called Vapours 

 and Low Spirits. Though the term Vapours may be found- 

 ed on a false theory, and therefore improper ; I beg leave, for 

 a purpose that will immediately appear, to employ it for a little 

 here. 



MCCXXIV. Vapours, then, or the state of mind described 

 above, is like every other state of mind, connected with a 

 certain state of the body, which must be inquired into, in order 

 to its being treated as a disease by the art of physic. 



MCCXXV. This state of the body, however, is not very 

 easily ascertained : for we can perceive, that on different 

 occasions it is very different ; vapours being combined some- 

 times with dyspepsia, sometimes with hysteria, and sometimes 

 with melancholia, which are diseases seemingly depending on 

 very different states of the body. 



MCCXXVI. The combination of vapours with dyspepsia is 

 very frequent, and in seemingly very different circumstances. 

 It is especially these different circumstances that I would wish 

 to ascertain ; and I remark that they are manifestly of two 

 different kinds. First, as the disease occurs in young persons 

 of both sexes, in persons of a sanguine temperament, and of a 

 lax and flaccid habit. Secondly, as it occurs in elderly persons 

 of both sexes, of a melancholic temperament, and of a firm and 

 rigid habit. 



MCCXXVII. These two different cases of the combination 

 of vapours and dyspepsia, I consider as two distinct diseases, 

 to be distinguished chiefly by the temperament prevailing in 

 the persons affected. 



As the dyspepsia of sanguine temperaments is often without 

 vapours ; and, as the vapours, when joined with dyspepsia in 



