494 THEORY OF FEVER. SUP. T. 14. 3. 



with torpor by its previous exhaustion of sensorial power, but 

 become greatly increased, producing irritative or inflammatory 

 fever. Where this fever is continued, though with some re- 

 missions and exacerbations, the excessive action is at length so 

 much lessened by expenditure of sensorial power, as to gradually 

 terminate in health; or it becomes totally exhausted, and death 

 succeeds the destruction of the irritability and associability of 

 the system. 



3. There is also another termination of the diseases in con- 

 sequence of great torpor of the stomach, which are not always 

 termed fevers; one of these is attended with so great and uni- 

 versal torpor, that the patient dies in the first cold fit; that is, 

 within twelve hours or less of the first seizure; this is commonly 

 termed sudden death. But the quickness of the pulse, and the 

 coldness with shuddering and with sick stomach, distinguished 

 a case, which I lately saw, from the sudden deaths occasioned by 

 apoplexy, or ruptured blood-vessels. 



In hemicrania T believe the stomach is always affected secon- 

 darily, as no quickness of pulse generally attends it, and as the 

 stomach recovers its activity in about two whole days. But in 

 the following case, which I saw last week, I suppose the stomach 

 suddenly became paralytic, and caused in about a week the 



death of the patient. Miss , a fine young lady about 



nineteen, had bathed a few times, about a month before, in a 

 cold spring, and was always much indisposed after it; she was 

 seized with sickness, and cold shuddering, with very quick pulse, 

 which was succeeded by a violent hot fit; during the next cold 

 paroxysm she had a convulsion fit; and after that symptoms of 

 insanity, so as to strike and bite the attendants, and to speak 

 furious language; the same circumstances occurred during a third 

 fit, in which I believe a strait waistcoat was put on, and some 

 blood taken from her; during all this time her stomach would 

 receive no nutriment, except once or twice a little wine and 

 water. On the seventh day of the disease, when I saw her, the 

 extremities were cold, the pulse not to be counted, and she was 

 unable to swallow, or to speak; a clyster was used with turpen- 

 tine and musk and opium, with warm fomentations, but she did 

 not recover from that cold fit. 



In this case the convulsion fit and the insanity seem to have 

 been violent efforts to relieve the disagreeable sensation of the 

 paralytic stomach; and the quick pulse, and returning fits of 

 torpor and of orgasm, evinced the disease to be attended with 

 fever, though it might have been called anorexia maniacalis, or 

 epileptica. 



4. Might not many be saved in these fevers with weak pulse 



