$34 Memoirs of Erasmus Darwin, M.D. 



The patients in the paroxysms both of humoral and con- 

 vulsive asthma find relief from cold air, as they generally 

 rise out of bed, and open the window, and put out their 

 heads ; for the lungs are not sensible to cold, and the sense 

 of suffocation is somewhat relieved by there being more ox- 

 ygen contained in a given quantity of cold fresh air, than in 

 the warm confined air of a close bed-chamber. 



I have seen humoral asthma terminate in confirmed ana- 

 sarca, and destroy the patient, who had been an excessive 

 drinker of spirituous potation. And M. Savage asserts, that 

 this disease frequently terminates in diabetes ; which seems 

 to show, that it is a temporary dropsy relieved by a great 

 flow of urine. Add to this, that these paroxysms of the 

 asthma are themselves relieved by profuse sweats of the up- 

 per parts of the body, which would countenance the idea of 

 their being occasioned by congestions of lymph in the 

 lungs. 



The congestion of lymph in the lungs from the defective 

 absorption of it is probably the remote cause of humoral 

 asthma; but the pain of suffocation is the immediate cause 

 of the violent exertions in the paroxysms. And whether 

 this congestion of lymph in the air-cells of the lungs in- 

 creases during our sleep, as above suggested, or not; the 

 pain of suffocation will be more and more distressing after 

 some hours of sleep, as the sensibility to internal stimuli, 

 increases during that time. For the same reason many epi- 

 leptic fits, and paroxysms of the gout, occur during sleep. 



In two gouty cases, complicated with jaundice, and pain, 

 and sickness, the patients had each of them a shivering fit, 

 like the commencement of an ague, to the great alarm of 

 their friends ; both which commenced in the night, I sup- 

 pose during their sleep ; and the consequence was a cessa- 

 tion of the jaundice, and pain about the stomach, and sick- 

 ness; and instead of that the gout appeared in their extre- 

 mities. In these cases I conjecture, that there was a me- 

 tastasis not only of the diseased action from the membranes 

 of the liver to those of the foot; but that some of the new 

 vessels, or new fluids, which were previously produced in 

 the inflamed liver, were translated to the feet during the cold 



fit, 



