SPASMODIC AFFECTIONS. 453 



lungs, the frequent use of gentle vomits is proper in this disease. 

 In certain cases, where a fit was expected to come on in the 

 course of the night, a vomit given in the evening has frequently 

 seemed to prevent it. 



" To the power of emetics of determining to the surface of the 

 body, I refer their use in asthma, so much recommended by 

 Dr. Akenside. I cannot indeed say, that I have imitated his 

 practice with much success, for in many cases of spasmodic 

 asthma I have continued the use of emetics for a long time, 

 without finding that I either prevented the recurrence of the 

 fits, or rendered them more moderate when they came ; but in 

 some other cases I have found the emetics of benefit in both 

 respects ; which, however, happened especially when the asthma 

 was in any degree of the pituitous or catarrhal kind, and there- 

 fore the emetics were of more service in the winter than in the 

 summer asthma. M. M. 



MCCCXCII. Blistering between the shoulders, or upon 

 the breast, has been frequently employed to relieve asthmatics ; 

 but, in the pure spasmodic asthma we treat of here, I have 

 rarely found blisters useful, either in preventing or relieving 

 fits. 



MCCCXCIII. Issues are certainly useful in obviating 

 plethora ; but, as such indications seldom arise in cases of 

 asthma, so issues have been seldom found useful in this disease. 



MCCCXCIV. As asthmatic fits are so frequently excited 

 by a turgescence of the blood, so the obviating and allaying of 

 this by acids and neutral salts, seems to have been at all times 

 the object of practitioners. See Floyer on the Asthma. 



MCCCXCV. Although a plethoric state of the system may 

 seem to dispose to asthma, and the occasional turgescence of 

 the blood may seem to be frequently the exciting cause of the 

 fits ; yet it is evident, that the disease must have arisen chiefly 

 from a peculiar constitution in the moving fibres of the bronchiae^ 

 disposing them upon various occasions to fall into a spasmodic 

 constriction ; and, therefore, that the entire cure of the disease 

 can only be expected from the correcting of that predisposition, 

 or from correcting the preternatural mobility or irritability of 

 the lungs in that respect. 



MCCCXCVI. In cases wherein this predisposition depends 



