SECT. XV. 1 6. AND INTESTINES. 23 



cient potation the urine is pale, that is, the urinary abforbents 

 at weakly, no fupply of water being wanted for the blood. 

 And when the inteftinal abforbents acl too violently, as when 

 too great quantities of fluid have been drunk, the urinary abforb- 

 ents invert their motions to carry off the fuperfluity, which is 

 a new circumftance of affociation, and a temporary diabetes fu- 

 pervenes. 



1 6. I have had the opportunity of feeing four patients in the 

 iliac paflion, where the ejected material fmelled and looked like 

 excrement. Two of thefe were fo exhauited at the time I faw 

 them, that more blood could not be taken from them, and as 

 their pain had ceafed, and they continued to vomit up every 

 thing which they drank, I fufpected that a mortification of the 

 bowel had already taken place, and as they were both women 

 advanced in life, and a mortification is produced with lefs pre- 

 ceding pain in old and weak people, thefe both died. The 

 other two, who were both young men, had dill pain and ftrength 

 fufficient for further venefeclion, and they neither of them had 

 any appearance of hernia, both recovered by repeated bleeding, 

 and a fcruple of calomel given to one, and half a dram to the 

 other, in very fmall pills : the ufual means of clyfters, and 

 purges joined with opiates, had been in vain attempted. I have 

 thought an ounce or two of crude mercury in lefs violent difeaf- 

 es of this kind has been of ufe, by contributing to reftore its 

 natural motion of fome part of the inteftinal canal, either by its 

 weight or ftimulus ; and that hence the whole tube recovered its 

 ufual affociations of progreflive periftaitic motion. I have in 

 three cafes fecn crude mercury given in fmall dofes, as one or 

 two ounces twice a day, have great effect in flopping pertina- 

 cious vomitings. 



17. Bcfides the affections above defcribed, the ftomach is lia- 

 ble, like many other membranes of the body, to torpor without 

 confequent inflammation : as happens to the membranes about 

 the head in fome cafes of hemicrania, or in general head-ach. 

 This torpor of the ftomach is attended with indigeftion, and 

 consequent flatulency, and with pain, which is ufually called the 

 cramp of the ftomach, and is relievable by aromatics, effential 

 oils, alcohol, or opium. 



The intrufion of a gall-ftone into the common bile-duel from 

 the gall bladder is fometimes miftaken for a pain of the ftomach, 

 as neither of them is attended with fever ; but in the paffage of 

 a gali-itone, the pain is confined to a lei's fpace, which is exadt- 

 ly where the common bile-duel enters the duodenum, as ex- 

 plained in Seel ion XXX 3. Whereas in this gaftrodynia the 

 pain is diffufed over the whole ftomach 5 and, like other difeafes 



from 



