Seer. XXV. 16. 17. STOMACH AND INTESTINES. 32? 



fuperfluity, which is a new circumftance of aflbcia- 

 tion, and a temporary diabetes fupervenes. 



1 6. I have had the oportunity of feeing four 

 patients in the iliac paflion, where the ejected ma- 

 terial fmelled and looked like excrement. Two of 

 thefe were fo exhaufted 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 fuf- 

 pecled 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 

 preceding pain in old and weak people, thefe both 

 died. The other two, who were both young men, 

 had (till pain and flrength fufficient for further 

 venefection, 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 

 . difeafes of this kind has been of ufe, by contribu- 

 ting to reftore its natural motion to fome part of 

 the inteftinal canal, either by its weight or flimulus; 

 and that hence the whole tube recovered its ufual 

 aifociations of progreflive periftaltic motion I have 

 in three cafes feen crude mercury given in fmall 

 dofes, as one or two ounces twice a day, have great 

 effect in (topping pertinacious vomitings. 



17. Befides the affections above defcribed, the 

 ftomach is liable, like many other membranes of 

 the body, to torpor without confequent inflamma- 

 tion : as happens to the membranes about the head j 

 in fome cafes of hemicrania, or in general head- 

 ach. This torpor of the itomach is attended with 

 indigeftion, and confequent flatulency, and with 

 pain, which is ufualiy called the cramp of the fto- 



