SECT. XXI. i. OF DRUNKENNESS. 191 



SECT. XX. 



OF DRUNKENNESS. 



I. Sleep from fatiety of hunger. From rocking children. From 

 uniform founds. 2* Intoxication from common food after fatigue 

 and inanition. 3. From wine or opium. Chilnefi ajter meals. 

 Vertigo. Why pleafure is produced by intoxication, and byfiving- 

 ing and rocking children. And 'why pain is relieved by it. 4. 

 Why drunkards Jl agger andjlammer, and are liable to weep. 5 . 

 And become delirious ^ Jleepy andjlupid. 6. Of make pale urine 

 and vomit. 7. Objecls arefeen double. 8 Attention of the mind 

 diminishes drunkennefs. 9. Difordered irritative motions of all 

 thefenfes. 10. Difsafes from drunkennefs. II. Definition of 

 drunkennefs. 



1. IN the ftate of nature when the fenfe of hunger is appeafed 

 by the ftimulus of agreeable food, the bufinefs of the day is 

 over, and the human fa?age is at vpeace with the world, he then 

 exerts little attention to external objects, pleafing reveries of im- 

 agination fucceed, and at length fleep is the refult : till the nour- 

 ifhment which he has procured, is carried over every part of the 

 fyftem to repair the injuries of action, and he awakens with 

 frefh vigour, and feels a renewal of his fenfe of hunger. 



The juices of fome bitter vegetables, as of the poppy and the 

 laurocerafus, and the ardent fpirit produced in the fermentation 

 of the fugar found in vegetable juices, are fo agreeable to the 

 nerves of the ftomach, that, taken in a fmall quantity, they in- 

 itantly pacify the fenfe of hunger; and the inattention to external 

 ftimuli with the reveries of imagination, and fleep, fucceeds, in 

 the fame manner as when the ftomach is filled with other lefs 

 intoxicating food. 



This inattention to the irritative motions occafioned by ex- 

 ternal ftimuli is a very important circumftance in the approach 

 of fleep, and is produced in young children by rocking their cra- 

 dles: during which all vifible objects become indiltinct to them. 

 An uniform foft repeated found, as the murmurs of a gentle cur- 

 rent, or of bees, are faid to produce the fame effect, by prefent- 

 ing indiftinct ideas of inconfequential founds, and by thus fteal- 

 ing our attention from other objects, whilft by their continued 

 reiterations they become familiar themfelves, and we ceafe grad- 

 ually to attend to any thing, and fleep enfues. 



2. After great fatigue or inanition, \\ h n the ftomach is fud- 

 Jenly filled with flefh and vegetable food, the inattention to ex- 

 ternal 



