546 NERVOUS AFFECTION CURED BY PRESSING THE CAROTriTS. 



to the right or left, the carotid escaped the effects of the 

 operation. 



Mode in which This view of the order of phenomena was, in reality, very 

 conformable to the known laws of the animal oeconomy. It 

 is admitted, that a certain momentum of the circulating 

 blood in the brain is necessary to the due performance of 

 the functions of that organ. Reduce the momentum, and 

 you not only impair those functions, but, if the reduction 

 go to a certain degree, you bring on syncope, in which they 

 are for a time suspended. On the other hand, in nervous 

 affections, the sensibility and other functions of the brain 

 are unduly increased ; and what can be more natural than to 

 attribute this effect to the contrary cause, or excessive mo- 

 mentum in the vessels of the brain ? If, however, this ana- 

 logical reasoning has any force in ascertaining the principle, 

 I must acknowledge, that it did not occur to me till twenty 

 years afterward, when a great number of direct experi- 

 ments had appeared to me clearly to demonstrate the fact. 



From various cases of this kind, I beg leave to select one 

 which occurred to me in the month of January, 1805. 



Case of nervous Mrs. T. aged 51, two years and a half beyond a certain 

 critical period of female life, a widow, mother of two chil- 

 dren, thin, and of a middle size, had been habitually free 

 from gout, rheumatism, hemorrhoids, eruptions, and all 

 other disorders, except those usually called nervous, and 

 occasional colds; one of which, about two years and a half 

 before, had been accompanied with considerable cough, and 

 bad still left some shortness of breathing, affecting her only 

 when she used strong muscular exertion, as in walking up 

 stairs, or up hill. 



In February 1803, after sitting for a considerable time in 

 a room without a fire, in very severe weather, she was so 

 much chilled as to feel, according to her own expression, 

 ** as if her blood within was cold." In order to warm her- 

 self, she walked briskly for a considerable time about the 

 house, but ineffectually. The coldness continued for seve- 

 ral hours, during which she was seized with a numbness or 

 sleepiness of her left side, together with a momentary deaf- 

 ness, but no privation or hebetude of the other senses, or 

 pain or giddiness of the head. After the deafness had sub- 

 sided^ 



