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others : when the venereal excitement is in its highest degree, animals 

 under its influence receive blows and stings without pain. Domestic 

 animals in that condition, are often ill treated, without appearing to feel 

 what is done to them. If the hind legs of the toad are cut off, at the time 

 that he is holding the female firmly embraced, and is pouring his prolific 

 seminal fluid on the ova which are issuing at her anus, he does not lose 

 his hold, he seems insensible to every other sensation; as a man who is 

 taken up with one thought, and absorbed in reflexion, is scarcely diverted 

 from it by any means that can be employed. When during the influence 

 of satyriasis, the vital power is carried to excess in the penis, patients 

 have been known, (as we are told by Aetius) to cut off both their testicles, 

 without suffering the pain usually attending so severe an operation. It 

 is by this law of sensibility, that we are to explain the observation of 

 Hippocrates, that two parts of the body cannot be in pain at the same 

 time. If two pains come on at once, the more violent prevents the slight- 

 er from being felt; Arribo partes non possunt dolore simul. Duobus dolori- 

 bus, simul orientibus, vehementior obseurat alterum. (Hipp.) In cases of 

 scrophulous swellings, the parts are observed to inflame, to become pain- 

 ful, and suppuration occurs but rarely in every part at once, if the case is 

 serious and attended with acute pain. The germ of a disease or of a 

 slighter affection, may sometimes remain dormant under a greater pain. 

 I was once overturned in a carriage, from the awkwardness of a coach- 

 man, the windows were broken and my wrists sprained. The right wrist 

 which had suffered most, swelled first ; I employed the proper treatment, 

 and when at the end of a wgpk, the swelling and the pain had almost com- 

 pletely ceased, and the right hand was beginniug to recover its suppleness 

 and flexibility, the left wrist swelled and in its turn became pained ; two 

 complaints, if they may be called such, appeared in succession, and sepa- 

 rately went through their regular course*. 



The perfection of one sense is never obtained but at the expense of an- 

 other ; the blind who bestow more attention on the sensations communi- 

 cated by the sense of touch and of hearing, often astonish us by the deli- 

 cacy of these organs, so that, as has been observed, those who, to improve 

 the human voice, have dared to mutilate their fellow-creatures, by de- 

 priving them of the organs of generation, might have bethought thetn- 



* John Hunter maintains from theory, the position that no two different fevers can 

 take place at the same time in the constitution, but that if the two causes of disease 

 exist together, the diseases themselves must be vicarious ; and he verifies Ms reason- 

 ings from experience. 



On Thursday, the 16th of May, 1775, I inoculated a gentleman's child, and it was 

 vedthat I made pretty large punctures. On the Sunday following, viz. the nine- 

 teenth, he appeared to have received the infection, a small inflammation or redness ap- 

 pearing round each puncture, and a small tumour. On the twentieth and twenty-first, 

 the child was feverish, hut I declared that it was not the variolous fever, as the inflam- 

 mation had not at all advanced since the nineteenth. On the twenty-second a consider- 

 ible eruption appeared, which was evidently the measles, and the sores on the anus 

 appeared to go back, becoming less inflamed. 



" On the twenty-third he was very full of the measles ; but the punctures on the arms 

 were in the same state as on the preceding day. 



" On the twenty-fifth, the measles began to disappear, on the twenty-sixth andtwen 

 seventh, tbe punctures began again to look a little red. On the tw*nti7.;*u +K~ :_ 



^animation inerpas^rl. nnrl thf>rf iiroo o i;-*1^ , r 1 f\ 



in- 



