OBSERVATIONS ON IRRITABILITY. 297
When the fauces are inflamed, the mufcles of deglutition are
more flrongly convulfed in fwalîowing than when thofe parts are
in their natural {late. When the inteAines are deprived, in a good
meafure, of their mucus, or become more feniible by a flight degree of
inflammation in their inner membrane, the mildefl purgatives will
often operate as roughly as the ftronger ones do in a perfon in per¬
fect health. When, without any ereélion in the penis, the Jemen
efcanes into the urethra, the mujculi acceleratores urines are not af-
i.
fecled by it : but, as often as the penis is erefled, whereby its parts
become more fenfible, and, as it were, half inflamed, the Jemen is
no fooner thrown into the beginning of the urethra, than thofe mu¬
fcles are excited into ftrong convulfive contractions.
The heart becomes fo irritable, when either itfelf or the peri¬
cardium is inflamed, as to be agitated with violent convulfions and
palpitations. Nay, the tendons, which, in a found ftate, have little
or no feeling, and are not irritable *, become, when inflamed, fo
fenfible offamuli, that the Arongeft convulflons have been occafion-
ed by pricking, tearing, or otherwife irritating them.
A difagreeable fenfation in the Aomach from wind and other
caufes, often quickens (efpecially in people whofe nervous fyAem
is delicate and moveable) the motion of the heart ; which will
often return to its natural motion by a glafs of wine, or fpirits, or
any thing that, by invigorating the Aomach, removes its uneafy
fenfation.
A difagreeable feeling in the Aomach makes the heart more irri¬
table, becaufe, by means of its nervous fympathy with that organ,
it increafes its fenfibility ; and, in like manner, an inflammation or
an unufual irritation in the kidneys or inteAines increafes the irrita¬
bility of the Aomach: but how a difagreeable feeling in the Aomach
fhould immediately alter the nature of thq gluten of the fibres of the
heart, I cannot conceive.
If therefore it appears, that the irritability of the moving organs
of our body is increafed as often as their own fenfibility, or that of
other parts with which they have an obfervable fympathy, is in-
P p créa fed 5
• Aft. Gotting, vol, 2, p, 140.