SUP* I. 12. 1, THEORY OF FEVER. 481 



in supplying the blood with a greater proportion of oxygen; 

 which may be done by respiration, if the patient was to breathe 

 either oxygen gas pure, or diluted with atmospheric air, which 

 might be given to many gallons frequently in a day, and by pass- 

 ing through the moist membranes of the lungs, according to the 

 experiments of Dr. Priestley, and uniting with the blood, might 

 render it more stimulant, and thus excite the heart and arteries 

 into greater action! May not some easier method of exhibiting 

 oxygen gas by respiration be discovered, as by using very small 

 quantities of hyper-oxygenated marine acid gas very much diluted 

 with atmospheric air? 



XII. Torpor of the Stomach and Upper Intestines. 



1. The principal circumstance, which supports the increased 

 action of the capillaries in continued fever with weak pulse, is 

 their reverse sympathy with those of the stomach and upper in- 

 testines, or with those of the heart and arteries. The torpor of 

 the stomach and upper intestines is apparent in continued fevers 

 from the total want of appetite for solid food, beside the sickness 

 with which fevers generally commence, and the frequent diarrhoea 

 with indigested stools, at the same time the thirst of the patient is 

 sometimes urgent at the intervals of the sickness. Why the 

 stomach can at this time take fluids by intervals, and not solids, 

 is difficult to explain; except it be supposed, as some have affirm- 

 ed, that the lacteal absorbents are a different branch from the 

 lymphatic absorbents, and that in this case the former only are in 

 a state of permanent torpor. 



2. The torpor ef the heart and arteries is known by the weak- 

 ness of the pulse. When the actions of the absorbents of the 

 stomach are diminished by the exhibition of small doses of digi- 

 talis, or become retrograde by larger ones, the heart and arteries 

 act more feebly by direct sympathy; but the cellular, cutaneous 

 and pulmonary absorbents are excited into greater action. 

 Whence in anasarca the fluids in the cellular membrane through- 

 out the whole body are absorbed during the sickness, and fre- 

 quently a great quantity of atmospheric moisture at the same time; 

 as appears by the very great discharge of urine, which sometimes 

 happens in these cases; and in ileus the prodigious evacuations 

 by vomiting, which are often a hundred fold greater than the 

 quantity swallowed, evince the great action of all the other ab- 

 sorbents during the sickness of the stomach. 



3. But when the stomach is rendered permanently sick by 

 an emetic drug, as by digitalis, it is not probable, that much ac- 

 cumulation of sensorial power is soon produced in this organ; 



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