CLASS I. ; 1.3. OF IRRITATION. 1 33 



mentation, and opening them again accelerates it; hence where 

 the digestion is impaired, and the stomach somewhat distended 

 with air, it is better to restrain than to encourage eructations, 

 except the quantity makes it necessary. When wine is confined 

 in bottles, the fermentation still proceeds slowly even for years, 

 till all the sugar is converted into spirit; bu^ in the process of 

 digestion, the saccharine part is absorbed in the form of chyle 

 by the bibulous mouths of the numerous lacteals, before it has 

 time to run into the vinous fermentation. 



3. Jlpepsia. Indigestion. Water-qualm. A few mouthfuls 

 of the aliment are rejected at a time for some hours after meals. 

 When the aliment has had time to ferment, and become acid, it 

 produces cardialgia or heart-burn. This disease is perhaps gene- 

 rally left after a slight inflammation of the stomach, called a sur- 

 feit, occasioned by drinking cold liquors, or eating cold vegeta- 

 bles, when heated with exercise. This inflammation of the 

 stomach is frequently, I believe, at its commencement removed 

 by a critical eruption on the face, which differs in its appearance 

 as well as in its cause, from the gutta rosea of drunkards, as the 

 skin round the base of each eruption is less inflamed. See Class 

 II. 1.4. 6. This disease differs from cardialgia, Class I. 2. 4. 

 5. in its being not uniformly attended with pain of the card! a 

 ventriculi, and from its retrograde motions of a part of the sto- 

 mach about the upper orifice of it. In the same manner as hyste- 

 ria differs from hypochondriasis; the one consisting in the weak- 

 ness and indigestion of the same portions of the alimentary canal, 

 and the other in the inverted motions of some parts of it. This 

 apepsia or water-qualm continues many years, even to old age. 

 Mr. G of Litchfield suffered under this disease from his in- 

 fancy; and as he grew old, found. relief only from repeated doses 

 of opium. 



M. M. A blister, rhubarb, a grain of opium twice a clay. 

 Soap, iron-powder. Tin-powder. 



4. Vomitus. An inverted order of the motions of the sto- 

 mach and oesophagus with their absorbent vessels, by which their 

 contents are evacuated. In the act of vomiting less sensorial 

 power is employed than in the usual peristaltic motion of the 

 stomach, as explained in Sect. XXXV. 1. 3. Whence after 

 the operation of an emetic the digestion becomes stronger by an 

 accumulation of sensorial power during its decreased action. 

 This decreased action of the stomach may be either induced by 

 want of stimulus, as in the sickness which attends hunger; or it 

 may be induced by temporary want of irritability, as in cold fits 

 of fever; or from habitual want of irritability, as the vomiting 



