[V]. The first of these temperaments differs from the standard of health from defect, and the others from excess of sensorial power; but it sometimes happens that the same individual, from the changes introduced into his habit by the different seasons of the year, modes or periods of life, or by accidental diseases, passes from one of these temperaments to another. Thus a long use of too much fermented liquor produces the temperament of increased sensibility; great indolence and solitude that of decreased irritability; and want of the necessaries of life that of increased voluntarity.
SECT. [XXXII].
DISEASES OF IRRITATION.
[I]. Irritative fevers with strong pulse. With weak pulse. Symptoms of fever, Their source. [II]. [1]. Quick pulse is owing to decreased irritability. [2]. Not in sleep or in apoplexy. [3]. From inanition. Owing to deficiency of sensorial power. [III]. [1]. Causes of fever. From defect of heat. Heat from secretions. Pain of cold in the loins and forehead. [2]. Great expense of sensorial power in the vital motions. Immersion in cold water. Succeeding glow of heat. Difficult respiration in cold bathing explained. Why the cold bath invigorates. Bracing and relaxation are mechanical terms. [3]. Uses of cold bathing. Uses of cold air in fevers. [4]. Ague fits from cold air. Whence their periodical returns. [IV]. Defect of distention a cause of fever. Deficiency of blood. Transfusion of blood. [V]. [1]. Defect of momentum of the blood from mechanic stimuli. [2]. Air injected into the blood-vessels. [3]. Exercise increases the momentum of the blood. [4]. Sometimes bleeding increases the momentum of it. [VI]. Influence of the sun and moon on diseases. The chemical stimulus of the blood. Menstruation obeys the lunations. Queries. [VII]. Quiesence of large glands a cause of fever. Swelling of the præcordia. [VIII]. Other causes of quiescence, as hunger, bad air, fear, anxiety. [IX]. [1]. Symptoms of the cold fit. [2]. Of the hot fit. [3]. Second cold fit why. [4]. Inflammation introduced, or delirium, or stupor. [X]. Recapitulation. Fever not an effort of nature to relieve herself. Doctrine of spasm.
[I]. When the contractile sides of the heart and arteries perform a greater number of pulsations in a given time, and move through a greater area at each pulsation, whether these motions are occasioned by the stimulus of the acrimony or quantity of the blood, or by their association with other irritative motions, or by the increased irritability of the arterial system, that is, by an increased quantity of sensorial power, one kind of fever is produced; which may be called Synocha irritativa, or Febris irritativa pulsu forti, or irritative fever with strong pulse.
When the contractile sides of the heart and arteries perform a greater number of pulsations in a given time, but move through a much less area at each pulsation, whether these motions are occasioned by defect of their natural stimuli, or by the defect of other irritative motions with which they are associated, or from the inirritability of the arterial system, that is, from a decreased quantity of sensorial power, another kind of fever arises; which may be termed, Typhus irritativus, or Febris irritativa pulsu debili, or irritative fever with weak pulse. The former of these fevers is the synocha of nosologists, and the latter the typhus mitior, or nervous fever. In the former there appears to be an increase of sensorial power, in the latter a deficiency of it; which is shewn to be the immediate cause of strength and weakness, as defined in Sect. [XII. 1. 3].
It should be added, that a temporary quantity of strength or debility may be induced by the defect or excess of stimulus above what is natural; and that in the same fever debility always exists during the cold fit, though strength does not always exist during the hot fit.
These fevers are always connected with, and generally induced by, the disordered irritative motions of the organs of sense, or of the intestinal canal, or of the glandular system, or of the absorbent system; and hence are always complicated with some or many of these disordered motions, which are termed the symptoms of the fever, and which compose the great variety in these diseases.
The irritative fevers both with strong and with weak pulse, as well as the sensitive fevers with strong and with weak pulse, which are to be described in the next section, are liable to periodical remissions, and then they take the name of intermittent fevers, and are distinguished by the periodical times of their access.