CLASS III. 2. 1. 14. OF VOLITION. 343 



gree of intoxication, whence difficulty of breathing may occur from 

 the inirritability of the lungs, as in Class I. 2. 1. 3. 



This explains an apparent paradox, why people who are feeble, 

 digest their dinners best, if they lie down and sleep, as most 

 animals do, when their stomachs are full. Yet many weak peo- 

 ple sleep very uneasily after a large supper. If the debility of the 

 patient be not very great, and the dinner he has taken be mode- 

 rate, the suspension of voluntary action during sleep prevents the 

 expenditure of so much sensorial power, which may be employed 

 on the actions of the stomach, and thus facilitate the digestive 

 process. If the patient be further exhausted as in the evening, 

 or his debility greater, and sleep ensues after a copious or stimu- 

 lating supper, so much sensorial power will be exerted on the ac- 

 tions of the stomach for digestion, that the circulation of the blood 

 through the lungs will be impeded from the diminished irritability 

 to external stimuli, and the absence of volition, as in the incubus, 

 and somnus interruptus. 



M. M. To sleep on a hard bed with the head raised. Moderate 

 supper. The bark. By sleeping on a harder bed the patient will 

 turn himself more frequently, and not be liable to sleep too pro- 

 foundly, or lie too long in one posture. To be awakened fre- 

 quently by an alarm clock. 



14. Lethargus. The lethargy is a slighter apoplexy. It is 

 supposed to originate from universal pressure on the brain, and is 

 said to be produced by compressing the spinal marrow, where 

 there is a deficiency of the bone in the spina bifida. See Sect. 

 XVIII. 20. Whereas in the hydrocephalus there is only a partial 

 pressure of the brain: and probably in nervous fevers with stupor 

 the pressure on the brain may affect only the nerves of the senses, 

 which lie within the skull, and not those nerves of the medulla 

 blongata, which principally contribute to move the heart and 

 arteries; whence in the lethargic or apoplectic stupor the pulse is 

 slow as in sleep, whereas in nervous fever the pulse is very quick 

 and feeble, and generally so in hydrocephalus. 



In cases of obstructed kidneys, whether owing to the tubuli 

 uriniferi being totally obstructed by calculous matter, or by 

 their paralysis, a kind of drowsiness or lethargy comes on about 

 the eighth or ninth day, and the patient gradually sinks. See 

 Class I. 1.3. 9. 



15. Syncope epileptica, is a temporary apoplexy, the pulse con- 

 tinuing in its natural state, and the voluntary power suspended. 

 This terminates the paroxysms of epilepsy. 



When the animal power is much exhausted by the preced- 

 ing convulsions, so that the motions from sensation as well as 

 those from volition are suspended; in a quarter or half an hour 



