CLASS I. 1. 2. 3. OF IRRITATION.. 17 



much salt, or salted meat, the sea-scurvy is produced; which 

 consists in the irritability of the bibulous terminations of the 

 veins arising from the capillaries; see Class I. 2. 1. 14. The 

 scrofula, or inirritability of the lymphatic glands, seems also to be 

 occasionally induced by an excess in eating salt added to food of 

 bad nourishment. See Class I. 2. 3. 21. If an excess of per- 

 spiration is induced by warm or stimulant clothing, as by wear- 

 ing flannel in contact with the skin in the summer months, a per- 

 petual febricula is excited, both by the preventing the access of 

 cool air to the skin, and by perpetually goading it by the nume- 

 rous and hard points of the ends of the wool; which when ap- 

 plied to the tender skins of young children, frequently produce 

 the red gum, as it is called; and in grown people, either an 

 erysipelas, or a miliary eruption, attended with fever. See 

 Class II. 1. 3. 12. 



Shirts made of cotton or calico stimulate the skin too much 

 by the points of the fibres, though less than flannel; whence 

 cotton handkerchiefs make the nose sore by frequent use. The 

 fibres of cotton are, I suppose, ten times shorter than those of 

 flax, and the number of points in consequence twenty times the 

 number; and though the manufacturers singe their calicoes on 

 a red-hot iron cylinder, yet I have more than once seen an ery- 

 sipelas induced or increased by the stimulus of calico, as well as 

 of flannel; and have during the last summer prevailed on two 

 who were confined to their beds by fevers, and three, who were 

 in a state of great debility, to disencumber themselves of the 

 flannel shirts which they had worn for some time; all of them 

 became immediately and considerably relieved; and found no 

 inconvenience afterwards by discontinuing an unnecessary sti- 

 mulus, which had nothing to recommend it to those patients but 

 the frivolous fashion of the day. 



The inconvenience, which weak constitutions experience from 

 wearing flannel shirts, arises from this circumstance; that the ex- 

 tremities of their limbs are more liable to become cold, than the 

 surface of the chest and abdomen, and that hence they should in 

 preference wear warmer stockings, shoes, and socks, or gloves. 

 By stimulating the warmer parts of the skin into too strong and 

 useless exertion, as by the hard points of a flannel shirt at all sea- 

 sons, and by its confining the warmth of the skin too much in 

 the summer months, a part of the sensorial power becomes un- 

 necessarily expended; and in weak constitutions, where there is 

 none to spare, some other parts of the system must act with less 

 energy; and thus I believe the extremities of feeble people be- 

 come colder by the use of a flannel shirt; in stronger people, and 

 perhaps in warmer climates, this increased coldness of the ex- 



VOL. II. D 



