42 DISEASES CLASS I. 1. 4. 6. 



M. M. Lance the gum of the expected teeth quite through the 

 periosteum longitudinally. Venesection by the lancet or by two 

 or three leeches. One grain of calomel as a purge. Tincture of 

 jalap, five or six drops in water every three hours till it purges, 

 to be repeated daily. After evacuations a small blister on the 

 back or behind the ears. And lastly two or three drops of lauda- 

 num according to the age of the child. Warm-bath. See Class 

 III. 1. 1. 5. and 6. 



6. Priapismus chronicus. I have seen two cases where an 

 erection of the penis, as hard as horn, continued two or three 

 weeks without any venereal desires, but not without some pain; 

 the easiest attitude of the patients was lying upon their backs 

 with their knees up. At length the corpus cavernosum urethras 

 became soft, and in another day or two the whole subsided. In 

 one of them a bougie was introduced, hoping to remove some 

 bit of gravel from the caput gallinaginis, camphor, warm bathing, 

 opium, lime-water, cold aspersion, bleeding in the veins of the 

 penis, were tried in vain. One of them had been a free drinker, 

 had much gutta rosacea on his face, and died suddenly a few- 

 months after his recovery from this complaint. Was it a para- 

 lysis of the terminations of the veins, which absorb the blood 

 from the tumid penis? or from the stimulus of indurated semen 

 in the seminal vessels? In the latter case some venereal desires 

 should have attended. Class III. 1.2. 16. 



The priapismus, which occurs to vigorous people in a morn- 

 ing before they awake, has been called the signum salutis, or 

 banner of health, and is occasioned by the increase of our irritability 

 or sensibility during sleep, as explained in Sect. XVIII. 15. 



7. Distentio mammularum. The distention of the nipples of 

 lactescent women is first owing to the stimulus of the milk. See 

 Sect. XIV. 8. and Sect. XVI. 5. See Class II. 1. 7. 10. 



8. Descensus uteri. This is a very frequent complaint after 

 bad labours, the fundus uteri becomes inverted, and descends 

 like the prolapsus ani. 



M. M. All the usual pessaries are very inconvenient and in- 

 effectual. A piece of soft sponge about two inches diameter in- 

 troduced into the vagina gives great ease to these patients, and 

 supports the uterus; it should have a string put through it to 

 retract it by. 



There are also pessaries now made of elastic gum, which are 

 said to be easily worn, and to be convenient from their having a 

 perforation in their centre. 



9. Prolapsus ani. The lower part of the rectum becomes in- 

 verted, and descends after every stool chiefly in children; and 

 thus stimulates the sphincter ani like any other extraneous body, 



