CLASS III. 1. 1. 12. OF VOLITION. 295 



lent matter, stimulate the whole system into greater energy of 

 action, and thus prevent the torpor which is the beginning of so 

 many diseases. In confirmation of this effect of pain on the sys- 

 tem, I remember the case of a lady of an ingenious and active 

 mind, who, for many of the latter years of her life, was perpe- 

 tually subject to great pains of her head from decaying teeth. 

 When all her teeth were gone, she became quite low spirited, 

 and melancholy in the popular sense of that word, and after a 

 year or two became universally dropsical and died. 



M. M. Issues in the thighs. Five grains of rhubarb, and one 

 sixth of a grain of emetic tartar every night for some months, 

 with or without half a grain of opium. No stronger liquor than 

 small beer or wine diluted with twice its quantity of water. 

 Since I wrote the above I have seen two cases of hydrops tho- 

 racis attended with pain in the left firm, so as to be mistaken for 

 asthma dolorificum, in which femoral issues, though applied early 

 in the disease, had no effect. 



12. Stridor dentium. The clattering of the teeth on going 

 into cold water, or in the beginning of ague-fits, is an exertion 

 along with the tremblings of the skin to relieve the pain of cold. 

 The teeth and skin being more sensible to cold than the more in- 

 ternal parts, and more exposed to it, is the reason that the muscles 

 which serve them, are thrown into exertion from the pain of cold 

 rather than those of respiration, as in screaming from more acute 

 pain. Thus the poet, 



Put but your toes into cold water, 

 Your correspondent teeth will clatter. 



PRIOR. 



In more acute pains the jaws are gnashed together with great 

 vehemence, insomuch that sometimes the teeth are said to have 

 been broken by the force. See Sect. XXXIV. 1. 3. In these 

 cases something should -be offered to the patient to bite, as a 

 towel, otherwise they are liable to tear their own arms, or to 

 bite their attendants, as I have witnessed in the painful epilepsy. 



13. Tetanus trismus. Cramp. The tetanus consists of a fix- 

 ed spasm of almost all the muscles of the body; but the trismus, 

 or locked jaw, is the most frequent disease of this kind. It is 

 generally believed to arise from sympathy with an injured ten- 

 don. In one case where it occurred in consequence of a broken 

 ancle from a fall from a horse, it was preceded by evident hy- 

 drophobia. Amputation was advised but not submitted to; 

 two wounds were laid into one with scissors, but the patient died 

 about the seventh day from the accident. In this case the 



