VOL. LV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 213 



sation was succeeded by a violent contraction not only of the hands and feet, 

 but also of the fingers and toes. The patients exclaimed that their hands and 

 feet were on fire, while their bodies were bedewed with copious sweats. After 

 much pain, the head became heavy and vertigo came on, with dimness of sight. 

 Some either became totally blind or saw objects double. They staggered like 

 drunken j^eople, and lost their recollection. Some became maniacal, others 

 melancholic, others comatose. Such as were above 15 years of age were liable 

 to become epileptic; and to the greater number of these, the disorder proved 

 fatal. The epileptic affection was accompanied with opisthotonos, and the foam 

 from the mouth was either tinged with blood, or was of a yellow or green colour. 

 During the convulsions the tongue was otten lacerated, and in some cases it was 

 swoln to such a degree as to interrupt the voice; at the same time there was a 

 copious discharge of saliva from the mouth. If epilepsy came on after cardial- 

 gia and vomiting, it was fatal. Those who were seized with chilliness and 

 shivering after the titillation, had their hands and feet less convulsed. In addi- 

 tion to this complication of sufferings, the patients were afflicted with a vo- 

 racious appetite, which in many instances it was impossible to satisfy; in a very 

 few instances there was a loathing of food. One patient had glandular abscesses 

 in the neck; but they were by no means of a pestilential nature. They dis- 

 charged a yellow pus, and were excessively inflamed and painful. Another 

 person had petechiae on the feet, which lasted for 8 weeks. In some instances 

 the face was disfigured with blotches (maculis). The pulse, in every instance, 

 was like the pulse of a person in health. In some the disorder lasted a fort- 

 night; in others a month ; in others 6 or 8 weeks; and in some even for as long 

 a period as 12 weeks; but with intermissions. There died of this disorder lOO 

 chiefly infants. Of 500 patients, 300 were infants, reckoning as infants, all 

 who were under 15 years of age. Two entire families were destroyed by this 

 disorder, not a single individual of those 2 houses escaping. The disorder 

 however, was not infectious. 



Burghard, after mentioning the convulsions of the extremities and other parts 

 of the body, with loss of intellect, adds that there was seldom any abatement of 

 the disorder before the 3d week (especially in those who ha<i no medical assist- 

 ance, or who did not observe a proper regimen) and that in many it lasted up- 

 wards of 1 or 2 months. Those who had a continued fever, and who sweated 

 profusely recovered soonest. Those to whom the disorder proved fatal, seemed 

 to be seized with palsy and apoplexy a short time before they expired. In 

 women, after intervals of remission, the disorder was aggravated at the period 

 of menstruation ; when this was over, they complained of little else for a week 

 or two except debility; but at the next monthly period, a renewal or exacerba- 

 tion of the disorder took place. Such as recovered were for a long time 



