III. 1. 1. 9. OF VOLITION. 289 



stimulus is so much greater after a previous defect of stimulus; 

 and this is still of greater advantage, where the cause of the dis- 

 ease happens to consist in a material, which can be absorbed. 

 See Art. IV. 2. 8. 



M. M. Venesection. An emetic. A cathartic. Warm bath. 

 Opium a grain every half hour. Wine. Spirit of wine. If the 

 patient becomes intoxicated by the above means, the fit ceases, 

 and violent vomitings and debility succeed on the subsequent 

 day, and prevent a return. Blisters or sinapisms on the small of 

 the leg, taken off when they give much pain, are of use in slighter 

 convulsions. Acupuncture. Electricity. Aspersion with cold 

 water on the painful part. A bag of snow or ice applied on the 

 pained part. 



9. Somnambulismus. Sleep-walking is a part of reverie, or 

 studium inane, described in Sect. XIX. In this malady the pa- 

 tients have only the general appearance of being asleep in re- 

 spect to their inattention to the stimulus of external objects, but, 

 like the epilepsies above described, it consists in voluntary exer- 

 tions to relieve pain. The muscles are subservient to the will, 

 as appears by the patient's walking about, and sometimes doing 

 the common offices of life. The ideas of the mind also are obe- 

 dient to the will, because the patient's discourse is consistent, 

 though he answers imaginary questions. The irritated ideas of 

 external objects continue in this malady, because the patients do 

 not run against the furniture of the room; and when they ap- 

 ply their volition to their organs of sense, they become sensible 

 of the objects they attend to, but not otherwise, as general sen- 

 sation is destroyed by the violence of their voluntary exertions. 

 At the same time the sensations of pleasure in consequence of 

 ideas excited by volition are vividly experienced, and other ideas 

 seem to be excited by these pleasurable sensations, as appears in 

 the case of Master A. Sect. XXXIV. 3. 1 . where a history of a 

 hunting scene was voluntarily recalled, with all the pleasurable 

 ideas which attended it. In melancholy madness (he patient is 

 employed in. voluntarily exciting one idea, with those which are 

 connected with it by voluntary associations only, but not so vio- 

 lently as to exclude the stimuli of external objects. In reverie 

 variety of ideas are occasionally excited by volition, and those 

 which are connected with them either by sensitive or voluntary 

 associations, and that so violently as to exclude the stimuli of ex- 

 ternal objects. These two situations of our sensual motions, or 

 ideas, resemble convulsion and epilepsy; as in the former the 

 stimulus of external objects is still perceived, but not in the lat- 

 ter. Whence this disease, so far from being connected with 

 sleep, though it has by universal mistake acquired its name from 



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