378 ON UTERINE IRRITATION, AND ITS EFFECTS 



External applications are well known to possess a similar 

 agency. We all know the influence of opium, and still more 

 familiarly that of inebriating liquors. 



A more singular agent is the gas called the nitrous oxide, 

 when inspired by the lungs, by the use of which the individual 

 is elevated in half a minute to the third heavens, and when 

 it is discontinued, is in an instant reduced again to the feelings 

 of a common child of earth. 



The girl who is the subject of Dr Dyce's communication 

 made, in the mode of commencement of her paroxysm, an ap- 

 proach to what is frequently the effect of this curious agent. 

 Some persons (perhaps the greater number) who breathe the 

 gas first feel a little confusion, afterwards a tingling in the 

 ears, then a sensation of great fulness and tension of the cra- 

 nium, giving the idea of a bladder distended with air. This 

 is accompanied with a feeling of alarm, but is instantly follow- 

 ed by a train of rapturous thoughts, accompanied by a feeling 

 of mental power, during which thousands of ideas seem to pass 

 through the mind in a small fraction of a minute, and the in- 

 dividual feels as if nothing in the universe could resist his 

 energies. The commencement of this state has some resem- 

 blance to that of this girl, as above described ; she said that 

 she first felt a drowsiness, with a little pain in the head ; then 

 a cloud or mist came over her eyes, attended with a peculiar 

 noise and motion in the head, resembling a carriage in which 

 she was placed, moving along with great velocity. The re- 

 semblance is not perfect. It is only such as to shew some 

 analogy between the effects of the nitrous oxide and the state 

 induced by a paroxysm of disease arising from particular 

 spontaneous circumstances of the constitution, and accompa- 

 nied by a sufficient susceptibility to tender emotions, and the 

 exhibition of more than her ordinary degree of musical taste 

 and execution. 



The 



