1802, ] 
fealed againft the entrance of the external 
air, This tathionable aérophrobia cannot 
Lif of Difaft 
Agi 
cumbent on him more accurately to ex- | 
plain the idea which he annexes toit. By 
fail to aggravate the injury and danger of ffimulus he means any agent, whether 
an occafional expofure to our inconftant 
and ungenial climate. 
Scabies has appeared of late a kind of 
epidemic among the poor; it may be at- 
tributed in mott inftances to a_ partial 
or inaccurate attention to cleanline/s; a 
circumftance which, more than any other, 
affifts in inducing a predifpofition to this 
particular difeale among the lower claffes, 
as well as to that countlefs variety of cu- 
taneous maladies, with which the more 
elegant ranks of fociety are fo frequently 
tormented, 
Such complaints as thefe, too commonly 
regarded as conftitutional or hereditary, 
for the moft part originate merely from an 
unpardonable carelefsnefs with regard tothe 
fir(t of the corporeal virtues.* 
_A contiderable number of the infances 
of ophthalmia and cephalza, that have oc- 
curred, feem to have been occafioned . by 
the too ftrenuous and continued exertion of 
the optic nerve, in the minute operations 
of watchmaking—an occupation which 
employs a large proportion of the me- 
chanics within the diltri& of the Finfbury 
-Dilpenfary. 
Inflammation or debility in the eye can- 
not but be produced by the exceffive. or 
wnieafonable exercife of it, and a difealed 
ftate of thatorgan is likely to be commu- 
nicated, by fympathy, to the brain in par- 
ticular, and in many inftances even to the 
whole nervous fyftem. Hence, from an ac- 
cidental injury apparently unimportant, 
inflicted on the exquifitely delicate inftru- 
ment of vifion, hyfteria, hypochondriafis, 
epilepfia, and: even abfolute and obftinate 
melancholia, have not unfrequently origi- 
nated. The treatment of difeafes arifing 
from this fource, which has proved mott 
efficacious and fuccefsful, has confifted 
principally in the well-timed and vigorous 
pplication of ftimulating remedies. 
As the Reporter’s meaning in the ule 
that he makes of the word flimulus, may 
be liable to mifinterpretation, it {cems in- 
: * Upon this as well as upon feveral other 
3mportant points in the pragtice of medicine, 
the reader may be referred to Dr, Willan’s 
recently publithed Reports on the Difeafes 
of London—a work from the perufal of 
which the moft learned in phyfic may derive 
an addition to their ftock of knowledge, and 
which even to thofe who are at prefe.it altoge- . 
ther unacquainted with that fcience, cannot 
fail to afford a high degree of rational amufe« 
ment, and of interefting information, : 
Monray Mag, No. 87, 
“of infanity. 
‘mentioned 
phyfical or mental, that produces a fudden 
and extraordinary excitement or energy of 
the nervous fyftem, which energy or ex- 
citement, is indirectly communicated in a 
proportionate degree to every other part 
and faculty of the human frame. The 
meaning of the wordis, in general, exclu- | 
fively confined to fermented and f{pirituous 
liquors: but, in a more comprehenfive and 
philofophical fenfe, it ought to include, 
not merely what aéts upon the ftomach, 
but likewife, all that vaft variety of moral 
caufes that operate powerfully upon the 
imagination. A perfon may be intoxi- 
cated by a piece of good news, as well as 
by a glafs of brandy—in this way pref- 
perity often proves,even in a phyfical point 
of view, as uzwabholefome as intemperance; 
it has, in well-recorded inftances, produced 
‘inftantaneous _ death, and, ‘what -is ftill 
worfe, dreadful and incurable paroxyfms 
In the well known South- 
fea {peculations, it was remarked, that 
not a fingle individual loft his reafon in 
confequence of the lofs of his property, 
but that many were ftimulated to madnefs 
by the too fudden accumulation of enor- 
mous wealth. Adverfity, that ‘* tamer of 
the human breaft,”’ aéts on the other hand 
as a falutary fedative upon the irri- 
tability of our frame, and protracts 
and preferves life, exactly in proportion 
as it deducts from the vivacity of its enjoy- 
ment. 
In the biographical account of a late 
diftinguifed literary perfonage,* it is 
that he was accuftomed to 
haverecourfe to ice-water as his daily cor- 
dial, and-that he not only experienced the 
moit agreeable immediate effects from it, 
but likewife attribured to its conftant ufe 
that ftate of health and vigour which he 
enjoyed with fearcely any interruption .to 
nearly the final moment of his exittence— 
the favourite ftimulus, on the contrary, of 
the late celebrated Mr. Burke’ was. water | 
intenfely hot, which, although upon tem- 
porary occafiens it excited a tranfient 
energy of mind, nodoubt tended ultimate- 
ly to deftroy the internal machinery, and 
to exaggerate that innate irritability of, 
feeling, and morbid extravagance of fancy, 
both of which, in this fingular charac- 
ter, feemed, contrary to the eftablithed 
courfe of nature, fenfibly to increafe as © 
his ftrength decayed, and almoft even at 
* The Earl of Osford, 
oh ; bs \. 
