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

by Erasmus Darwin

GENUS [I].

Catenated with Irritative Motions.

Those retrograde associate motions, the first links of which are catenated with irritative motions, belong to this genus. All the retrograde motions are consequent to debility, or inactivity, of the organ; and therefore properly belong to the genera of decreased actions both in this and the former classes.

SPECIES.

[1]. Diabætes irritata. When the absorbents of the intestines are stimulated too strongly by spirit of wine, as in the beginning of drunkenness, the urinary absorbents invert their motions. The same happens from worms in the intestines. In other kinds of diabetes may not the remote cause be the too strong action of the cutaneous absorbents, or of the pulmonary ones? May not in such cases oil externally or internally be of service? or warm bathing for an hour at a time? In hysteric inversions of motion is some other part too much stimulated? or pained from the want of stimulus?

[2]. Sudor frigidus in asthmate. The cause of the paroxysms of humoral asthma is not well understood; I suppose it to be owing to a torpidity or inaction of the absorbents belonging to the pulmonary vessels, as happens probably to other viscera at the commencement of intermittent fevers, and to a consequent accumulation of fluids in them; which at length producing great irritation or uneasy sensation causes the violent efforts to produce the absorption of it. The motions of the cutaneous absorbent vessels by their association with those of the pulmonary ones become retrograde, and effuse upon the skin a fluid, which is said to be viscid, and which adheres in drops.

A few days ago I saw a young man of delicate constitution in what was called a fit of the asthma; he had about two months before had a peripneumony, and had been ever since subject to difficult respiration on exertion, with occasional palpitation of his heart. He was now seized about eight at night after some exertion of mind in his business with cold extremities, and difficulty of breathing. He gradually became worse, and in about half an hour, the palpitation of his heart and difficult respiration were very alarming; his whole skin was cold and pale, yet he did not shudder as in cold paroxysm of fever; his tongue from the point to the middle became as cold as his other extremities, with cold breath. He seemed to be in the act of dying, except that his pulse continued equal in time, though very quick. He lost three ounces of blood, and took ten drops of laudanum with musk and salt of hartshorn, and recovered in an hour or two without any cold sweat.

There being no cold sweat seems to indicate, that there was no accumulation of serous fluid in the lungs; and that their inactivity, and the coldness of the breath, was owing to the sympathy of the air-cells with some distant part. There was no shuddering produced, because the lungs are not sensible to heat and cold; as any one may observe by going from a warm room into a frosty air, and the contrary. So the steam of hot tea, which scalds the mouth, does not affect the lungs with the sensation of heat. I was induced to believe, that the whole cold fit might be owing to suppuration in some part of the chest; as the general difficulty of breathing seemed to be increased after a few days with pulse of 120, and other signs of empyema. Does the cold sweat, and the occurrence of the fits of asthma after sleep, distinguish the humoral asthma from the cold paroxysm of intermittents, or which attends suppuration, or which precedes inflammation?—I heard a few weeks afterwards, that he spit up much matter at the time he died.

[3]. Diabætes a timore. The motions of the absorbent vessels of the neck of the bladder become inverted by their consent with those of the skin; which are become torpid by their reverse sympathy with the painful ideas of fear, as in Sect. XVI. 8. 1. whence there is a great discharge of pale urine, as in hysteric diseases.

The same happens from anxiety, where the painful suspense is continued, even when the degree of fear is small; as in young men about to be examined for a degree at the universities the frequency of making water is very observable. When this anxiety is attended with a sleepless night, the quantity of pale urine is amazingly great in some people, and the micturition very frequent.