CLASS HI. 2. 1. 17. OF VOLITION. 345 



rate quantity. Warm fomentations long continued and fre- 

 quently repeated on the shaved head. Solution of aloes. Clys- 

 ters with solution of aloes and oil of amber. A blister on the 

 spine. An emetic. Afterwards the bark, and small doses of 

 chalybeates. Small electric shocks through the head. Errhines. 

 If small doses of opium? mercurial ointment rubbed on the head 

 or neck? 



Where there is a difficulty of swallowing in apoplectic or para- 

 lytic patients, or in those near death in fevers, or other diseases, 

 no fluid should be put into their mouths as they lie upon their 

 backs, lest it should choke them; but they should be raised and 

 supported upright in their beds, and stimulated by strong light, 

 and spoken to in a louder voice, desiring them to swallow, as the 

 fluid is put into the mouth, and the spoon should be immediately 

 withdrawn, that they may close their mouths. Hence if they 

 cannot swallow, it will flow out of their mouths, and not endanger 

 suffocating them. See Hemiplegia, Spec. 10, of this genus. 



17. Mors a frigore. Death from cold. The unfortunate 

 travellers, who almost every winter perish in the snow, are much 

 exhausted by their efforts to proceed on their journey, as well as 

 benumbed by cold. And as much greater exercise can be borne 

 without fatigue in cold weather than in warm; because the exces- 

 sive motions of the cutaneous vessels are thus prevented, and the 

 consequent waste of sensorial power; it may be inferred, that the 

 fatigued traveller becomes paralytic from violent exertion as well 

 as by the application of cold. 



Great degrees of cold affect the motions of those vessels most, 

 which have been generally excited into action by irritation; for 

 when the feet are much benumbed by cold, and painful, and at 

 the same time almost insensible to the touch of external objects, 

 the voluntary muscles retain their motions, and we continue to 

 walk on; the same happens to the fingers of children in throw- 

 ing snow-balls, the voluntary motions 'of the muscles continue, 

 though those of the cutaneous vessels are benumbed into inac- 

 tivity. 



Mr. Thompson, an elderly gentleman of Shrewsbury, was 

 seized with hemiplegia in the cold bath; which I suppose might 

 be owing to some great energy of exertion, as much as to the 

 coldness of the water. As in the instance given of Mr. Nairn, 

 who, by the exertion to save his relation, perished himself. See 

 Sect. XXXIV. 1. 7. 



Whence I conclude, that, though heat is a fluid necessary to 

 muscular motion, both perhaps by its stimulus, and by its keep- 

 ing the minute component parts of the ultimate fibrils of the 



VOL. ii. Y y 



