336 DISEASES CLASS III. 2. 1. 8, 



tinum, like the urinary bladder in the preceding article, possesses 

 voluntary power of moiion; though these volitions are at times 

 uncontrollable by the will, when the acrimony of the contained 

 feces, or their bulk, stimulates it to a greater degree. Hence it 

 happens, that this part is liable to lose its voluntary power by 

 paralysis, but is still liable to be stimulated imo action by ihe 

 contained feces. This frequently occurs in fevers, and is a bad 

 sign as a sympton of general debility; and it is the sensibility of 

 the muscular fibres of this and of the urinary bladder remaining, 

 after the voluntarily has ceased, which occasions these two re- 

 servoirs so soon to regain, as the fever ceases, their obedience 10 

 volition; because the paralysis is thus shewn to be less complete 

 in those cases than in common hemiplegia; as in the latter the 

 sense of touch, though perhaps not the sense of pain, is gene- 

 rally destroyed in the paralytic limb. 



M. ML. A sponge introduced within the sphincter ani to pre- 

 vent the constant discharge, which should have a string put 

 through it, by which it may be retracted. 



8. Paresis vohmtaria. Indolence: or inaptitude to voluntary 

 action. This debility of the exertion of voluntary efforts pre- 

 vents the accomplishment of all great events in life. It often 

 originates from a mistaken education, in which pleasure or flat- 

 tery is made the immediate motive of action, and not future ad- 

 vantage; or what is termed duty. This observation is of great 

 value to those, who attend to the education of their own chil- 

 dren. I have seen one or two young married ladies of fortune 

 who perpetually became uneasy, and believed themselves ill, a 

 week after their arrival in the country, and continued so uniform- 

 ly during their stay; yet on their return to London or Bath, im- 

 mediately lost all their complaints, and this repeatedly; which I 

 was led to ascribe to their being in their infancy surrounded with 

 menial attendants, who had flattered them into the exertions 

 they then used. And that in their riper years, they became tor- 

 pid for want of this stimulus, and could not amuse themselves 

 by any voluntary employment; but required ever after, either 

 to-be amused by other people, or to be flattered into activity. 

 This I suppose, in the other sex, to have supplied one source of 

 ennui and suicide. See Class III. 1.2. 11. 



9. Calalepsis is sometimes;used for fixed or spasmodic contrac- 

 tions, or tetanus, as described in Sect. XXXIV. 1. 5. and in Class 

 III. 1. 1. 13. but is properly simply an inaptitude to muscular 

 motion, the limbs remaining in any attitude in which they are 

 placed. One patient whom I saw in this situation, had taken 

 much mercury, and appeared universally torpid. He sat in a 

 chair in any posture he was put, and held a glass to his mouth 



