76 ANALYTIC SECT. VII. 
obnoxious when they continue their exercise too 
long in cold water. There are several diseases 
considered as spasmodic by medical writers, where 
the spasms are, properly speaking, only symptoms 
of morbid action; such are, syncope, cholera, 
and the various shades of mental alienation. The 
convulsions of hysteria are also probably only 
symptomatic; for though in females it is com- 
monly referrible to the uterus, yet, as it occurs 
likewise in males, the uterus cannot be regarded 
as necessarily the seat of the disease. 
cLxxviul. In some instances, one part of the 
muscular system is convulsed, and another in a 
state of spasm, at the same moment. A French 
soldier coming down the rue Copeaux, at Paris, 
leaned himself against the wall, and was seized 
with spasm of the sacral extremities; the passengers 
seeing him ill, supported him in their arms. The 
mental functions were suspended without any 
motion of the facial muscles, the trunk and sacral 
extremities were inflexible, but both arms were 
convulsed. In twenty minutes he regained his 
senses, and was able to walk away, though with 
extreme difficulty. In the suspension of the 
mental functions and convulsion of the arms, this 
case resembles epilepsy ; and in the rigid spasm 
of the trunk and limbs, it is near akin to tetanus. 
Many varieties of convulsion and spasm are to be 
met with in practice. 
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