whole tube
recovered its usual associations of progressive peristaltic motion. I have
in three cases seen crude mercury given in small doses, as one or two
ounces twice a day, have great effect in stopping pertinacious vomitings.

17. Besides the affections above described, the stomach is liable, like
many other membranes of the body, to torpor without consequent
inflammation: as happens to the membranes about the head in some cases of
hemicrania, or in general head-ach. This torpor of the stomach is attended
with indigestion, and consequent flatulency, and with pain, which is
usually called the cramp of the stomach, and is relievable by aromatics,
essential oils, alcohol, or opium.

The intrusion of a gall-stone into the common bile-duct from the
gall-bladder is sometimes mistaken for a pain of the stomach, as neither of
them are attended with fever; but in the passage of a gall-stone, the pain
is confined to a less space, which is exactly where the common bile-duct
enters the duodenum, as explained in Section XXX. 1. 3. Whereas in this
gastrodynia the pain is diffused over the whole stomach; and, like other
diseases from torpor, the pulse is weaker, and the extremities colder, and
the general debility greater, than in the passage of a gall-stone; for in
the former the debility is the consequence of the pain, in the latter it is
the cause of it.

Though the first fits of the gout, I believe, commence with a torpor of the
liver; and the ball of the toe becomes inflamed instead of the membranes of
the liver in consequence of this torpor, as a coryza or catarrh frequently
succeeds a long exposure of the feet to cold, as in snow, or on a moist
brick-floor; yet in old or exhausted constitutions, which have been long
habituated to its attacks, it sometimes commences with a torpor of the
stomach, and is transferable to every membrane of the body. When the gout
begins with torpor of the stomach, a painful sensation of cold occurs,
which the patient compares to ice, with weak pulse, cold extremities, and
sickness; this in its slighter degree is relievable by spice, wine, or
opium; in its greater degree it is succeeded by sudden death, which is
owing to the sympathy of the stomach with the heart, as explained below.

If the stomach becomes inflamed in consequence of this gouty torpor of it,
or in consequence of its sympathy with some other part, the danger is less.
A sickness and vomiting continues many days, or even weeks, th