Zoonomia; Or, the Laws of Organic Life, Vol. II

by Erasmus Darwin

And lastly, the cold bath, or aspersions with cold water on the affected part, according to the method of Dr. Currie in the Memoirs of a Med. Soc. London, V. iii. p. 147, might produce great effect at the commencement of the pain. Nevertheless opium duly administered, so as to precede the expected paroxysm, and in such doses, given by degrees, as to induce intoxication, is principally to be depended upon in this deplorable malady. To which should be added, that if venesection can be previously performed, even to but few ounces, the effect of the opium is much more certain; and still more so, if there be time to premise a brisk cathartic, or even an emetic. The effect of increased stimulus is so much greater after previous defect of stimulus; and this is still of greater advantage where the cause of the disease happens to consist in a material, which can be absorbed. See Art. [IV. 2. 8].

M. M. Venesection. An emetic. A cathartic. Warm bath. Opium a grain every half hour. Wine. Spirit of wine. If the patient becomes intoxicated by the above means, the fit ceases, and violent vomitings and debility succeed on the subsequent day, and prevent a return. Blisters or sinapisms on the small of the leg, taken off when they give much pain, are of use in slighter convulsions. Acupuncture. Electricity. Aspersion with cold water on the painful part.

[9]. Somnambulismus. Sleep-walking is a part of reverie, or studium inane, described in Sect. XIX. In this malady the patients have only the general appearance of being asleep in respect to their inattention to the stimulus of external objects, but, like the epilepsies above described, it consists in voluntary exertions to relieve pain. The muscles are subservient to the will, as appears by the patient's walking about, and sometimes doing the common offices of life. The ideas of the mind also are obedient to the will, because their discourse is consistent, though they answer imaginary questions. The irritative ideas of external objects continue in this malady, because the patients do not run against the furniture of the room; and when they apply their volition to their organs of sense, they become sensible of the objects they attend to, but not otherwise, as general sensation is destroyed by the violence of their voluntary exertions. At the same time the sensations of pleasure in consequence of ideas excited by volition are vividly experienced, and other ideas seem to be excited by these pleasurable sensations, as appears in the case of Master A. Sect. XXXIV. 3. 1. where a history of a hunting scene was voluntarily recalled, with all the pleasurable ideas which attended it. In melancholy madness the patient is employed in voluntarily exciting one idea, with those which are connected with it by voluntary associations only, but not so violently as to exclude the stimuli of external objects. In reverie variety of ideas are occasionally excited by volition, and those which are connected with them either by sensitive or voluntary associations, and that so violently as to exclude the stimuli of external objects. These two situations of our sensual motions, or ideas, resemble convulsion and epilepsy; as in the former the stimulus of external objects is still perceived, but not in the latter. Whence this disease, so far from being connected with sleep, though it has by universal mistake acquired its name from it, arises from excess of volition, and not from a suspension of it; and though, like other kinds of epilepsy, it often attacks the patients in their sleep, yet those two, whom I saw, were more frequently seized with it while awake, the sleep-walking being a part of the reverie. See Sect. XIX. and XXXIV. 3. and Class [II. 1. 7. 4]. and [III. 1. 2. 18].

M. M. Opium in large doses before the expected paroxysm.

[10]. Asthma convulsivum. The fits of convulsive asthma return at periods, and are attended with cold extremities, and so far resemble the access of an intermittent fever; but, as the lungs are not sensible to the pain of cold, a shivering does not succeed, but instead of it violent efforts of respiration; which have no tendency, as in the humoral asthma, to dislodge any offending material, but only to relieve the pain by exertion, like the shuddering in the beginning of ague-fits, as explained Class [III. 1. 1. 2].

The insensibility of the lungs to cold is observable on going into frosty air from a warm room; the hands and face become painfully cold, but no such sensation is excited in the lungs; which is another argument in favour of the existence of a peculiar set of nerves for the purpose of perceiving the universal fluid matter of heat, in which all things are immersed. See Sect. XIV. 6. Yet are the lungs nevertheless very sensible to the deficiency of oxygen in the atmosphere, as all people experience, when they go into a room crowded with company and candles, and complain, that it is so close, they can scarcely breathe; and the same in some hot days in summer.

There are two diseases, which bear the name of asthma. The first is the torpor or inability of the minute vessels of the lungs, consisting of the terminations of the pulmonary and bronchial arteries and veins, and their attendant lymphatics; in this circumstance it resembles the difficulty of breathing, which attends cold bathing. If this continues long, a congestion of fluid in the air-cells succeeds, as the absorbent actions cease completely before the secerning ones; as explained in Class [I. 1. 2. 3]. And the coldness, which attends the inaction of these vessels, prevents the usual quantity of exhalation. Some fits cease before this congestion takes place, and in them no violent sweating nor any expuition of phlegm occurs. This is the humoral asthma, described at Class [II. 1. 1. 7].

The second kind of asthma consists in the convulsive actions in consequence of the disagreeable sensations thus induced; which in some fits of asthma are very great, as appears in the violent efforts to raise the ribs, and to depress the diaphragm, by lifting the shoulders. These, so long as they contribute to remove the cause of the disease, are not properly convulsions, but exertions immediately caused by sensation; but in this kind of asthma they are only efforts to relieve pain, and are frequently preceded by other epileptic convulsions.

These two kinds of asthmas have so many resembling features, and are so frequently intermixed, that it often requires great attention to distinguish them; but as one of them is allied to anasarca, and the other to epilepsy, we shall acquire a clearer idea of them by comparing them with those disorders. A criterion of the humoral or hydropic asthma is, that it is relieved by copious sweats about the head and breast, which are to be ascribed to the sensitive exertions of the pulmonary vessels to relieve the pain occasioned by the anasarcous congestion in the air-cells; and which is effected by the increased absorption of the mucus, and its elimination by the retrograde action of those lymphatics of the skin, whose branches communicate with the pulmonary ones; and which partial sweats do not easily admit of any other explanation. See Class [I. 3. 2. 8]. Another criterion of it is, that it is generally attended with swelled legs, or other symptoms of anasarca. A criterion of the convulsive asthma may be had from the absence of these cold clammy sweats of the upper part of the body only, and from the patient having occasionally been subject to convulsions of the limbs, as in the common epilepsy.

It may thus frequently happen, that in the humoral asthma some exertions of the lungs may occur, which may not contribute to discharge the anasarcous lymph, but may be efforts simply to relieve pain; besides those efforts, which produce the increased absorption and elimination of it; and thus we have a bodily disease resembling in this circumstance the reverie, in which both sensitive and voluntary motions are at the same time, or in succession, excited for the purpose of relieving pain.