MEDICINE. 
i!i€ diagnostic remarks, in the article Diete- 
tics, in which case, some of the preparations 
nf mercury may be given with much advan- 
tage, employing afterwards bitters, baik, 
and ebalybeates : the diet should be light, 
nourishing, and stimulating. Tlie Bath 
waters are very serviceable, both by the 
mouth, and as a bath ; particularly so if the 
disease have arisen from intemperance, or 
the colica pictonum ; should there, howe- 
ver, be a constitutional determination to 
the head, we must strictly attend to the 
effects, which the Bath waters produce 
upon the system, as they may suddenly in- 
duce much mischief. 
Order II. Adynamia;. Defective 
Powers. 
This title is inexplicit, as being equally 
applicable to a variety of other orders as 
well as to the present. The order is 
characterised tlius : a diminution of the 
involuntary motions, whether vital or na- 
tural. 
The genera are : 1. Syncope, or fainting; 
a diminution, or for a short time, a total 
stoppage, of the motion of the heart. It is 
either idiopathic, or symptomatic. 2. Dys- 
pepsia, or indigestion; auore.xy, nausea, 
vomiting; inflation, belching, rumination, 
heart-burn, pain in the stomach ; these, or 
some of these symptoms at least]concurririg, 
for the most part, with a constipation of 
the belly, and wfithout any other disease 
either of the stomach itself or of any other 
parts. 3. Hypocondriasis, indigestion with 
langour, sadness and fear without any ade- 
quate causes in a melancholy tempera- 
ment. 4. Chlorosis, green-sickness, or a 
desire of something not used as food, a pale 
or discoloured complexion, the veins not 
well filled, a soft tumour of the whole body, 
debility, palpitation, suppression of men- 
struation, 
It is obvious that the genera of this or- 
der relate, for the most part, either to those 
which belong naturally to the tribe of dis- 
eases of indigestion, and have already been 
treated by us under the article Dietetics, 
or else are catenated with peculiar states of 
the female frame, and as such tall naturally 
into the article Midwifery, and will be 
noticed under that term. 
Order III. Spasmi, Spasms. 
Irregular motions of the muscles or mus- 
cular fibres. This definition, however, does 
not suiaiciently distinguish this order from 
some of the species of syncope, whicfi 
ranges under the last. It is a very numer- 
ous family, divided into two sections. 
A, In the animal functions ; 1. Tetanus, 
a spastic cramp or rigidity of almost the 
whole body, varying according to the re- 
mote cause, as it arises either from some- 
thing internal, from cold, or from a wound, 
or according to the part of the body af- 
fected, be the cause what it may. 2. Tris- 
mus, a spastic rigidity of the lower jaw ■ 
two species, the first seizing infants, the 
second seizing persons of all ages from a 
wound or cold. 3. Convulsio, convulsions, 
commonly so called, an irregular chronic 
contraction of the muscles without sleep; 
idiopathic, and symptomatic. 4. Chorea, St. 
Vitus’s dance, attacking those who have not 
yet arrived at puberty, most commonly with- 
in the tenth and fourteenth year of age, with 
convulsive motions for the most part in at- 
tempting the voluntary motion of the hands 
and arms, resembling the gesticulations of 
mountebanks ; in walking, appearing to 
drag rather than to lift one of the feet 
after the body. 5. Raphania, a spastic 
contraction of the joints with a convulsive 
agitation, and most violent periodical pain. 
6. Epilepsia, epilepsy, a convulsion of the 
nmscles witli sleep, from various causes, 
and of various species; cerebral, sympathe- 
tic, occasional, as proceeding from injuries 
of the head, pain, worms, poison; from 
repulsion of the itch, or an affusion of any 
other acrid humour, from crudities in the 
stomach, from passions of the mind, from 
an immoderate haemorrhage, or from debi- 
lity. T-. Palpitatio, palpitation, a violent 
and irregular motion of the heart. 8. Asth-< 
raa, a difficulty of breathing returning by 
intervals, with a sense of strictness in the 
breast, and a noisy respiration with hissing. 
In the beginning of the paroxysm no cough, 
or the coughing difficult, but the cough 
free towards the close, frequently with a 
copious spitting of mucus ; three species, 
spontaneous, from eruptive fevers, from ple- 
thora. 9. Dyspnoea, impeded respiration, 
a continual difficulty of breathing, without 
any sense of straitness, but rather of full- 
ness and infarction in the breast; a fre- 
quent cough throughout the whole course 
of the disease; eight idiopathic species; 
three symptomatic,accompanying diseases of 
the heart; a swelling in the abdomen, pro - 
ducing various maladies. 10. Pertussis, hoop- 
ing cough, a contagious disease; convulsive 
strangulating cough, reiterated with noisy 
inspiration ; frequent vomiting. 11 . Pyrosis j 
