é24 OF THE MOST REMARKABLE
(a) A gentlewoman upwards of 30 years of age, who had been
long troubled with wind in her ftomach and bowels, indigeftion,
faintnefs, languor, palpitations, and hidden fits of terror, with a
-pulfe generally quick, but variable, having been for fome little
time much freer from thefe complaints than ufual, on the 24th of Au-
guft, became all at once deprived of her reafon. During the nights,
and in the mornings, ihe talked incoherently ; but throughout the
-day file had fome intervals of reafon. While file continued in this
way, her pulfe was better than ufual, and file was quite free from
her ordinary nervous fymptoms. She had no fliarp pain in her
head, but complained of an uneafy fenfation and great confufion
in it. Being coftive, fhe took fome aloetic pills but could not be
prevailed on to ufe any other medicine. However, in a few days,
{he grew much better ; and by the 5th of September entirely reco¬
vered the ufe of her reafon, but relapfed in fome degree into her
old complaints of flatulence, indigeftion, and palpitation.
(b) A gentleman aged between fixty and feventy, after having
been for fome years free from the gout, began to have confiant
complaints of his ftomach and bowels, and at laft was feized, all
at once, with a delirium, which, by the application of finapifms to
the foies of his feet, went off in a few hours. In two days the de¬
lirium returned, when, by hliftering his legs, a pain came into one
of his great toes, upon which he recovered his fenfes entirely. In
this manner the gouty humour moved backwards and forwards
between his head and feet, for near two months, till at laft, being
more fixed in the brain, it brought on a continued and violent mad-
nefs, which no remedy could leflen. In this ftate he obftinately re—
fufed almoft every kind of food, and died in a few weeks.
4. Sudden terror, exceflive grief, or other violent paflions of the
mind, in people whofe nervous fyftem is very delicate, may affed
the brain fo as to produce a continued mania or melancholy. But
in what manner the paflions, or the morbid matter of nervous dif-
eafes, change the ftate of the brain, or common fenforium^xià occa-
fion fuch diforders, is entirely unknown.
XVIII. The