NOTES. 307 



in the month of May, as the weather gre"\v warm he became con- 

 siderably debilitated, his digestion was languid and his appetite poor. 

 He was also uniformly cosiivc. These unpleasant symptoms in- 

 creased through the summer and autumn. In the month of Feb- 

 ruary, in the ensuing year, he became much more unwell, in conse- 

 quence of sitting two or three hours one evening with wet feet, in 

 a cold room. This brought on a very severe cough, and a light 

 fever and a great increase of debility. He continued to grow worse 

 for six or eight weeks, and his complaints were so obstinate and so 

 little relieved by the medicines made use of, that his friends became 

 apprehensive about the consequences. In April he began very 

 slowly to mend, but was unable to leave his room till about the be- 

 ginning of May. He then every pleasant day, accustomed himself 

 to walk as far as he could without inducing much fatigue. He gain- 

 ed strength very slowly. His diet was not sufficiently nourishing? 

 nor were any tonic or stimulant medicines made use of. The phy- 

 sician who had attended him had given no directions relative to these 

 subjects, and neither himself nor his friends were sufficiently aware 

 of the importance of adopting vigorous measures for his relief.— 

 When he had acquired strength enough to walk out, he began to be 

 afflicted with almost contihued nausea. This evil attended him 

 from the time he awoke in the morning, till he got asleep in the 

 evening, except during a quarter or half an hour after each meal. 

 The sensation at the stomach, he described as very exactly resem- 

 bling that, in kind and degree, which results from taking an emetic 

 about five minutes before it occasions vomiting. For this com- 

 plaint, his physicians prescribed emetics, but they proved of no ser- 

 vice; the stomach being so extremely torpid, that vomiting was not 

 in any instance excited. They appeared to have no other effect, 

 except to debilitate, and to increase the evil Avhich they were intend- 

 ed to remedy. From the first of May, till about the middle of 

 September, he had very few or no natural stools. During this time 

 he was obstinately costive, except for short periods. At these pe- 

 riods he was in a state of severe diarrhea. For the costiveness ca- 

 thartics, of what kind I know not, were administered every other 

 day and nothing passed his bowels, except in consequence of them, 

 only during the turns of diarrhea. These were brought on in eve- 

 ery instance by eating acid fruits or pies, came at nearly regular in- 

 tervals, continued about four days, and occasioned each from forty 

 to seventy stools. The stomach was continually filled with acid 



