go PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1744. 



As Dr. R. had no room to doubt the fact, he began to consider attentively 

 the symptoms of the distemper, apd the nature of the remedy. The former 

 seemed to proceed immediately from the irritations of the nerves by the acrimony 

 of the juices; which, being constantly and violently hurried about, are, by that 

 motion, and the heat attending it, broken, colliquated, and gradually rendered 

 rancid, putrid, corrosive, and even caustic: in the mean time, the nerves, being 

 more and more vellicated by the increasing sharpness of the humours, become 

 proportionably more rigid and constricted; at once augmenting the velocity of 

 the blood, and shutting up all the pores and passages of the natural excretions 

 and secretions; while what should, but cannot, pass off by them, exasperates 

 the disorder, till the juices become so corrosive and caustic, as to produce mortal 

 convulsions. 



Believing this theory to be just, so far as it goes, he readily concluded, that a 

 medicine capable of relaxing the nervous system could not fail of relieving it 

 from the abovementioned effects of irritation, and thereby putting a stop to con- 

 vulsions, opening the constricted passages of nature, moderating the velocity 

 of the blood, and procuring sleep; imagining also that, by the same soothing 

 quality, the juices themselves might, not improbably, be rendered more mild 

 and innocent when impregnated with the medicine. And such a medicine he 

 judged musk to be, on account of its known, and almost instantaneous, effects 

 on persons of a lax habit; whose nerves are so suddenly slackened, and the mo- 

 tion of their blood so diminished by the least smell of it, that many of them 

 faint away; besides, its odour is so exceedingly subtile, as to penetrate through 

 the closest substances; and may therefore be supposed easily to pervade the mi- 

 nutest vessels of the human body, and to diffuse its softening balsamic virtue 

 through all its juices. 



The arrack seemed also a verj' proper vehicle for the musk ; not only as they 

 make together a very agreeable bitter, but also because inflammable spirits resist 

 putrefaction, and also, in some measure coagulate animal juices, which are not 

 already corrupted ; by which effects the too much rarefied blood is condensed, 

 and hindered from putrefying further; while the bad juices, being separated from 

 the sound, are plentifully thrown off by the passages, which the musk has 

 relaxed, and opened for them. The native cinnabar seemed to be sufficiently 

 recommended by its known uses in physic, against acrimony, obstructions, and 

 convulsions ; but of the vermillion he could only say, that though it be a prepa- 

 ration of the former, yet, as the Tonquinese seem to think its virtue different, 

 it were to be wished, that we knew their method of preparing it, in which they 

 certainly excel. 



After he had long considered and examined these principles in his mind, he 

 satisfied himself, tliat they might justly be applied to many other cases; and that 



