CLASS II. 2. 2. 5. OF SENSATION. 269 



ters asserts, that the female sex become pregnant with most cer- 

 tainty at or near the time of menstruation. This is not im- 

 probable, since these monthly periods seem to resemble the 

 monthly venereal orgasm of some female quadrupeds, which be- 

 come pregnant at those times only; and hence the computation 

 of pregnancy is not often erroneous, though taken from the last 

 menstruation. See Sect. XXXVI. 2. 3. 



M. M. Opium a grain every night. Chalybeates in very 

 small doses. Bark. Sea-bathing. 



5. Insensibilitas artuum. As in some paralytic limbs. A great 

 insensibility sometimes accompanies the torpor of the sk.n in cold 

 fits of agues. Some parts have retained the sense of heat, but 

 not the sense of touch. See Sect. XVI. 6. 



M. M. Friction with flannel. A blister. Warmth. 



6. Disuria insensitiva. Insensibility of the bladder. A diffi- 

 culty or total inability to make water attends some fevers with 

 great debility, owing to the insensibility or inirritability of the 

 bladder. This is a dangerous but not always a fatal symptom. 

 See Class III. 2. 1. 6. 



M. M. Draw off the water with a catheter. Assist the pa- 

 tient in the exclusion of it by compressing the lower parts of the 

 abdomen with the hands. Wine two ounces, Peruvian bark 

 one dram in decoction, every three hours alternately. Balsam 

 of copaiva. Oil of almonds, with as much camphor as can be 

 dissolved in it, applied as a liniment rubbed on the region of the 

 bladder and perinseum, and repeated every four hours, was used 

 in this disease with success by Mr. Latham. Med. Comment. 

 1791, p. 213. 



7. Jlccumulatio alvina. An accumulation of feces in the 

 rectum, occasioned by the torpor, or insensibility of that bowel. 

 But as liquids pass by these accumulations, it differs from the 

 constipatio alvi, which is owing to too great absorption of the 

 alimentary canal. 



Old milk, and especially when boiled, is liable to induce this 

 kind of costiveness in some grown persons; which is probably 

 owing to their not possessing sufficient gastric acid to curdle and 

 digest it; for as both these processes require gastric acid, it fol- 

 lows that a greater quantity of it is necessary, than in the diges- 

 tion of other aliments, which do not 4 reviously require being 

 curdled. This ill digested milk not sufficiently stimulating the 

 rectum, remains till it becomes a too solid mass. On this ac- 

 count milk seldom agrees with those, who are subject to piles, 

 by inducing costiveness and large stools. 



M. M. Extract the hardened scybala by means of a marrow- 

 spoon: or by a piece of wire, or of whale-bone bent into a bow 



