entation.
Oil and camphor rubbed on the part. Oil-silk covering. A blister on the
part. Ether, or alcohol, suffered to evaporate on the part.

11. _Consternatio._ Surprise. As our eyes acquaint us at the same time with
less than half of the objects, which surround us, we have learned to
confide much in the organ of hearing to warn us of approaching dangers.
Hence it happens, that if any sound strikes us, which we cannot immediately
account for, our fears are instantly alarmed. Thus in great debility of
body, the loud clapping of a door, or the fall of a fire-shovel, produces
alarm, and sometimes even convulsions; the same occurs from unexpected
sights, and in the dark from unexpected objects of touch.

In these cases the irritability is less than natural, though it is
erroneously supposed to be greater; and the mind is busied in exciting a
train of ideas inattentive to external objects; when this train of ideas is
dissevered by any unexpected stimulus, surprise is excited; as explained in
Sect. XVII. 3. 7. and XVIII. 17. then as the sensibility in these cases is
greater, fear becomes superadded to the surprise; and convulsions in
consequence of the pain of fear. See Sect. XIX. 2.

The proximate cause of surprise is the increased irritation induced by some
violent stimulus, which dissevers our usual trains of ideas; but in
diseases of inirritability the frequent starting or surprise from sounds
not uncommon, but rather louder than usual, as the clapping of a door,
shews, that the attention of the patient to a train of sensitive ideas was
previously stronger than natural, and indicates an incipient delirium;
which is therefore worth attending to in febrile diseases.

* * * * *

ORDO II.

_Decreased Irritation._

GENUS I.

_With decreased Action of the Sanguiferous System._

The reader should be here apprized, that the words strength and debility,
when applied to animal motions, may properly express the quantity of
resistance such motions may overcome; but that, when they are applied to
mean the susceptibility or insusceptibility of animal fibres to motion,
they become metaphorical terms; as in Sect. XII. 2. 1. and would be better
expressed by the words activity and inactivity.

There are three sources of animal inactivity; first, the defect of the
natural quantity of stimulus on those fibres, which have been accustomed to
perpetual stimulus; as the arterial and secerning systems.