156 DISEASES CLASS H. 1. 1. 8. 



but be has not recovered his health. I was informed, that an 

 idiot had swallowed a half-crown piece, and directed crude quick- 

 silver to be given him in repeated quantities, but never heard 

 the event of the case. 



A lady in my presence was eating a custard out of a tea-cup, 

 and put 3 or 4 pins into her mouth, which were supposed to 

 have been carelessly left in the cup, and swallowed one of them: 

 now, though needles have found their way out of the body, and 

 other sharp indigestible materials, yet pins being terminated 

 with heads are said often to have occasioned dangerous and pain- 

 ful diseases, and sometimes death. What then should be done? 

 It occurred to me, that as the head of the pin would have so 

 much greater friction than the point, that if it was carried for- 

 wards by a stream of mucilaginous fluid, the head must go first; 

 and I therefore immediately directed an emetic, and the pin was 

 brought up without any pain, or any stains of blood in the ejected 

 fluid. 



8. Jlsthma humorale. The humoral asthma probably consists 

 in a temporary anasarca of the lungs, which may be owing to a 

 temporary defect of lymphatic absorption. Its cause is never- 

 theless at present very obscure, since a temporary deficiency of 

 venous absorption, at the extremities of the pulmonary or bron- 

 chial veins, might occasion a similar difficulty of respiration. See 

 Abortio, Class I. 2. I. 14. Or it might be supposed, that the 

 lymph effused into the cavity of the chest might, by some addi- 

 tional heat during sleep, acquire an aerial form, aud thus com- 

 press the lungs; and on this circumstance the relief, which these 

 patients receive from cold air, would be readily accounted for. 



The paroxysms attack the patient in his first sleep, when the 

 circulation through the lungs in weak people wants the assistance 

 of the voluntary power. Class I. 2. 1. 3. And hence the ab- 

 sorbents of the lungs are less able to fulfil the whole of their duty. 

 And part of the thin mucus, which is secreted into the air-cells,- 

 remains there unabsorbed, and occasions the difficult respiration, 

 which awakes the patient. And the violent exertions of the 

 muscles of respiration, which succeed, are excited by the pain of 

 suffocation, for the purpose of pushing forwards the blood through 

 the compressed capillaries, and to promote the absorption of the 

 effused lymph. 



In this the humoral differs from the convulsive asthma, treat- 

 ed of in Class III. 1. 1. 10. as in that there is probably no ac- 

 cumulated fluid to be absorbed; and the violent respiration is 

 only an exertion for the purpose of relieving pain, either in the 

 lungs or in some distant part, as in other convulsions, or epilepsy; 

 and in this respect the fits of humoral and convulsive asthma 



