or; while the doctor, in his way to Pellet's apartment, hinted to the
governor his suspicion that the patient laboured under that dreadful
symptom called the hydrophobia, which he observed had sometimes appeared
in persons who were not previously bit by a mad dog. This conjecture
he founded upon the howl he uttered when he was soused with water, and
began to recollect certain circumstances of the painter's behaviour for
some days past, which now he could plainly perceive had prognosticated
some such calamity. He then ascribed the distemper to the violent
frights he had lately undergone, affirming that the affair of the
Bastille had made such a violent encroachment upon his understanding,
that his manner of thinking and speaking was entirely altered. By a
theory of his own invention, he explained the effects of fear upon a
loose system of nerves, and demonstrated the modus in which the animal
spirits operate upon the ideas and power of imagination.

This disquisition, which was communicated at the painter's door, might
have lasted till breakfast, had not Jolter reminded him of his own
maxim, Venienti occurrite morbo; upon which he put the key to immediate
use, and they walked softly towards the bed, where the patient lay
extended at full length in the arms of sleep. The physician took
notice of his breathing hard, and his mouth being open; and from
these diagnostics declared, that the liquidum nervosum was intimately
affected, and the saliva impregnated with the spiculated particles
of the virus, howsoever contracted. This sentence was still farther
confirmed by the state of his pulse, which, being full and slow,
indicated an oppressed circulation, from a loss of elasticity in the
propelling arteries. He proposed that he should immediately suffer a
second aspersion of water, which would not only contribute to the cure,
but also certify them, beyond all possibility of doubt, with regard to
the state of the disease; for it would evidently appear, from the manner
in which he would bear the application, whether or not his horror of
water amounted to a confirmed hydrophobia. Mr. Jolter, in compliance
with his proposal, began to empty a bottle of water, which he found
in the room in a basin; when he was interrupted by the prescriber,
who advised him to use the contents of the chamberpot, which, being
impregnated with salt, would operate more effectually than pure element.
Thus directed, the governor lifted up the vessel, which