These Patients should gradually be inured to an almost continual, but gentle, Kind of Exercise.
All violent Medicines render those Diseases, which are the Consequences of great Fear, incurable. A pretty common one is that of an Obstruction of the Liver, which has been productive of a Jaundice. [107]
Of Accidents or Symptoms produced by the Vapours of Coal, and of Wine.
§ 524. Not a single Year passes over here, without the Destruction of many People by the Vapour of Charcoal, or of small Coal, and by the Steam or Vapour of Wine.
The Symptoms by Coal occur, when [108] small Coal, and especially when [109] Charcoal is burnt in a Chamber close shut, which is direct Poison to a Person shut up in it. The sulphureous Oil, which is set at Liberty and diffused by the Action of Fire, expands itself through the Chamber; while those who are in it perceive a Disorder and Confusion in their Heads; contract Vertigos, Sickness at Stomach, a Weakness, and very unusual Kind of Numbness; become raving, convulsed and trembling; and if they fail of Presence of Mind, or of Strength, to get out of the Chamber, they die within a short Time.
I have seen a Woman who had vertiginous Commotions in her Head for two Days, and almost continual Vomitings, from her having been confined less than six Minutes in a Chamber (and that notwithstanding, both one Window and one Door were open) in which there was a Chafing-dish with some burning Coals. Had the Room been quite close, she must have perished by it.
This Vapour is narcotic or stupefying, and proves mortal in Consequence of its producing a sleepy or apoplectic Disorder, though blended, at the same time, with something convulsive; which sufficiently appears from the Closure of the Mouth, and the strict Contraction or Locking of the Jaws.
The Condition of the Brain, in the dissected Bodies of Persons thus destroyed, proves that they die of an Apoplexy: notwithstanding it is very probable that Suffocation is also partly the Cause of their Deaths; as the Lungs have been found stuffed up with Blood and livid.
It has also been observed in some other such Bodies, that Patients killed by the Vapour of burning Coals, have commonly their whole Body swelled out to one third more than their Magnitude, when living. The Face, Neck, and Arms are swelled out, as if they had been blown up; and the whole human Machine appears in such a State, as the dead Body of a Person would, who had been violently strangled; and who had made all possible Resistance for a long time, before he was overpowered.
§ 525. Such as are sensible of the great Danger they are in, and retreat seasonably from it, are generally relieved as soon as they get into the open Air; or if they have any remaining Uneasiness, a little Water and Vinegar, or Lemonade, drank hot, affords them speedy Relief. But when they are so far poisoned, as to have lost their Feeling and Understanding, if there be any Means of reviving them, such Means consist,