OR MADNESS. 265 



usually be found in proportion as the character of dumb mad- 

 ness was more or less well defined, but some considerable 

 deg-ree of morbid alteration in the stomach is common to 

 every variety of the disease, and is almost invariably pre- 

 sent. 



When our attention is directed to the stomach, we are 

 first struck with its appearance of distention, and on opening- 

 into it, the cause is seen to arise from an accumulation of a 

 considerable, oftentimes of an immense, mass of indigestible 

 substances, as hay, straw, wood, coals, cinders, matting, or, 

 in fact, any surrounding* substance which proved small enough 

 for deglutition. This disposition to take in unusual ingesta 

 exists in every variety of the complaint; and as sickness and 

 vomiting", though common in its early stages, are but seldom 

 present during the latter periods of it, so the substances 

 taken in, being- of an indigestible nature, necessarily remain 

 within the stomach until death. There is little reason to 

 doubt that a morbid sympathy in this organ is the occasion of 

 this peculiarity, and that the presence of these hard bodies 

 gives some relief probably by the distention they occasion. 

 Certain it is, that the appearance of this indigestible and in- 

 cong-raous matter within the stomach is so common, that it be- 

 comes a pathognomonick sign of the utmost importance, and 

 it should be searched for in every case Vv^here doubt exists *. 



* In describing the criteria of the disease, I have purposely omitted 

 before enlarging on this particular, that I might here do it more fully, 

 and that I might at once describe both the cause and effect : I must now 

 therefore remark, that, of all the characteristic marks of the complaint, 1 

 consid'^r this as the most genuine, and as the one liable to the least vari- 

 ation. I will not say that I never saw a rabid stomach, after death, 

 without this crude indigestible mass; but, during the examination of more 

 than two hundred cases, I do not recollect to have met with more than 

 two or three without it j and in those, the non-appearance was, perhaps, 

 to be attributed to an accidental fit of nausea. This genuine character- 

 istic cannot, therefore, be too strongly kept in mind, because it is one 

 that may be sought for by one person as well as another; by the most 

 uninformed ; and bv the amateur as well as the professional man. It is 



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