CLASS II. 1. 1, 8. OF SENSATION. 157 



essentially differ from each other, contrary to the opinion ex- 

 pressed without sufficient consideration in Sect. XVIII. 15. 



The patients in the paroxysms both of humoral and convul- 

 sive asthma find relief from cold air, as they generally rise out 

 of bed, and open the window, and put out their heads; for the 

 lungs are not sensible to cold, and the sense of suffocation is 

 somewhat relieved by there being more oxygen contained in a 

 given quantity of cold fresh air, than in the warm confined air 

 of a close bed-chamber. 



I have seen humoral asthma terminate in confirmed anasarca 

 and destroy the patient, who had been an excessive drinker of 

 spirituous potation. And M. Savage asserts, that this disease 

 frequently terminates in diabetes; which seems to shew, that it 

 is a temporary dropsy relieved by a great flow of urine. Add to 

 this, that these paroxysms of the asthma are themselves relieved 

 by profuse sweats of the upper parts of the body, as explained 

 in Class I. 3. 2. S. which would countenance the idea of their 

 being occasioned by congestions of lymph in the lungs. 



The congestion of lymph in the lungs from the defective ab- 

 sorption of it is probably the remote cause of humoral asthma; 

 but the pain of suffocation is the immediate cause of the violent 

 exertions in the paroxysms. And whether this congestion of 

 lymph in the air-cells of the lungs increases during our sleep, as 

 above suggested, or not; the pain of suffocation will be more and 

 more distressing after some hours of sleep, as the sensibility to 

 internal stimuli increases during that time, as described in Sect. 

 XVIII. 15. For the same reason many epileptic fits, and pa- 

 roxysms of the gout, occur during sleep. 



In two gouty cases, complicated with jaundice, and pain, and 

 sickness, the patients had each of them a shivering fit, like the 

 commencement of an ague, to the great alarm of their friends; 

 both which commenced in the night, I suppose during their 

 sleep; and the consequence was a cessation of the jaundice, and 

 pain about the stomach, and sickness; and instead of that the 

 gout appeared in their extremities. In these cases I conjecture, 

 that there was a metastasis not only of the diseased action from 

 the membranes of the liver to those of the foot; but that some of 

 the new vessels, or new fluids, which were previously produced 

 in the inflamed liver, were translated to the feet during the cold 

 fit, by the increased absorption of the hepatic lymphatics, and by 

 the retrograde motions of those of the affected limbs. 



This I think resembles in some respects a fit of humoral asth- 

 ma, where stronger motions of the absorbent vessels of the lungs 

 are excited, and retrograde ones of the correspondent cutaneous 

 lymphatics; whence the violent sweats of the upper parts of the 



