104 DISEASES CLASS I. 2. 4, 



ORDO II. 



Decreased Irritation. 

 GENUS IV. 



With decreased Actions of other Cavities and Membranes. 



MANY of the diseases of this genus are attended with pain, 

 and with cold extremities, both which cease on the exhibition 

 of wine or opium ; which shows that they originate from deficient 

 action of the affected organ. These pains are called nervous or 

 spasmodic, are not attended with fever, but are frequently suc- 

 ceeded by convulsions and madness; both which belong to the 

 class of volition. Some of them return at periods, arid when 

 these can be ascertained, a much less quantity of opium will pre- 

 vent them, than is necessary to cure them, when they are begun; 

 as the vessels are then torpid and inirritable from the want of 

 sensorial power, till by their inaction it becomes again accumu- 

 lated. 



Our organs of sense, properly so called, are not liable to pain 

 from the absence of their appropriated stimuli, as from darkness 

 or silence; but the other senses, which may be more properly 

 called appetites, as those by which we perceive heat, hunger, 

 thirst, lust, want of fresh air, are affected with pain from the de- 

 fect or absence of their accustomed stimuli, as well as with plea- 

 sure by the possession of them; it is probable that some of our 

 glands, the sense or appetite of which requires or receives some- 

 thing from the circulating blood, as the pancreas, liver, testes, 

 prostate gland, may be affected with aching or pain, when they 

 cannot acquire their appropriate fluid. 



Wherever this effect of stimulus occurs, a torpor or inaction 

 of the organ ensues, as in the capillaries of the skin, when expos- 

 ed to cold; and in the glands, which secrete the gastric juice, 

 when we are hungry. This torpor, however, and concomitant 

 pain, which are at first owing to defect of stimulus, are after- 

 wards induced by other associations or catenations, and consti- 

 tute the beginning of ague-fits. 



It must be further observed, that in the diseases of pain with- 

 out fever, the pain is frequently not felt in the part where the 

 cause of the disease resides; but is induced by sympathy with a 

 distant part, the irritability or sensibility of which is greater or 

 less than its own. Thus a stone at the neck of the bladder, if its 

 stimulus is not very great, only induces the pain of strangury at 



