17. Do convulsions go off gradually from the nervous system, as in tetanus, and chorea sancti viti? So they do from the arterial blood-vessels in certain states of fever.
18. Do convulsions go off suddenly in any cases from the nervous system? The convulsion in the blood-vessels goes off in the same manner by a sweat, or by a hæmorrhage, frequently in the course of a night, and sometimes in a single hour.
19. Does palsy in some instances succeed to convulsions in the nervous system? Something like a palsy occurs in fevers of great inflammatory action in the arteries. They are often inactive in the wrists, and in other parts of the body, from the immense pressure of the remote cause of the fever upon them.
From the facts and analogies which have been mentioned, I have been led to conclude that the common forms of fever are occasioned simply by irregular action, or convulsion in the blood-vessels.
The history of the phenomena of fever, as delivered in the foregoing pages, resolves itself into a chain, consisting of the five following links.
1. Debility from action, or the abstraction of stimuli. When this debility is induced by action, it is sometimes preceded by elevated excitement in the blood-vessels, from the first impressions of stimuli upon them.
2. An increase of their excitability.
3. Stimulating powers applied to them.
4. Depression. And,