produced by the Use of Spirituous Liquors . 173 
tural. The female body is in general more delicate than 
that of the other sex. The system of their solids is 
more relaxed; their fibres are more fragile and of a 
weaker structure, and therefore their texture more easily 
hurt. Their mode of life also contributes to increase 
the weakness of their organization. Women, abandon- 
ed in general to a sedentary life, charged with the care 
of the internal domestic economy, and often shut up in 
close apartments, where they are condemned to spend 
whole days without taking any exercise, are more sub- 
ject than men to become corpulent. The texture of tho 
soft parts in female bodies being more spongy, absorption 
ought to be freer ; and as their whole bodies imbibe spi- 
rituous liquors with more ease, they ought to experience 
more readily the impression of fire. Hence that combus- 
tion, the melancholy instances of which seem to be fur- 
nished by women alone ; and it is owing merely to the 
want of a certain concurrence of circumstances and of 
physical causes, that these events, though less rare than 
is supposed, do not become more common. 
The second general observation serves to explain the 
third ; I mean, that the combustion took place only in 
women far advanced in life. The Countess of Cesena 
was sixty-two years of age ; Mary Clues, fifty-two; 
Grace Pitt, sixty ; Madame de Boiseon, eighty ; and 
Mademoiselle Thuars more than sixty. These exam- 
ples prove that combustion is more frequent among old 
women. Young persons, distracted by other passions, 
are not much addicted to drinking ; but when love, de- 
parting along with youth, leaves a vacuum in the mind, 
if its place be not supplied by ambition or interest, a 
taste for gaming, or religious fervor, it generally falls a 
prey to intoxication. This passion still increases as the 
others diminish, especially in women, who can indulge 
it without restraint, Wilmer, therefore, observes, that 
