mething which too powerfully stimulates the cardia
ventriculi, or upper orifice of the stomach. As when solid food is too
hastily taken without sufficient dilution. And is an effort to dislodge
that offensive material, and push it to some less sensible part of the
stomach, or into the middle of the contained aliment.

At the end of fatal fevers it may arise from the acrimony of the undigested
aliment, or from a part of the stomach being already dead, and by its
weight or coldness affecting the surviving part with disagreeable
sensation. The pain about the upper orifice of the stomach is the proximate
cause, the too great or too little action of the fibres of this part of the
stomach is the remote cause, the action of the muscles used in inspiration
is the proximate effect, and the repercussion of the offending material is
the remote effect.

Hiccough is sometimes sympathetic, occasioned by the pain of gravel in the
kidney or ureter, as in Class IV. 1. 1. 7. and is sometimes a symptom of
epilepsy or reverie, as in Sect. XIX. 2.

M. M. Oil of cinnamon from one drop gradually increased to ten, on sugar,
or on chalk. Opium. Blister. Emetic.

7. _Asthma humorale._ The humoral asthma probably consists in a temporary
anasarca of the lungs, which may be owing to a temporary defect of
lymphatic absorption. Its cause is nevertheless at present very obscure,
since a temporary deficiency of venous absorption, at the extremities of
the pulmonary or bronchial veins, might occasion a similar difficulty of
respiration. See Abortio, Class I. 2. 1. 14. Or it might be supposed, that
the lymph effused into the cavity of the chest might, by some additional
heat during sleep, acquire an aerial form, and thus compress the lungs; and
on this circumstance the relief, which these patients receive from cold
air, would be readily accounted for.

The paroxysms attack the patient in his first sleep, when the circulation
through the lungs in weak people wants the assistance of the voluntary
power. Class I. 2. 1. 3. And hence the absorbents of the lungs are less
able to fulfil the whole of their duty. And part of the thin mucus, which
is secreted into the air-cells, remains there unabsorbed, and occasions the
difficult respiration, which awakes the patient. And the violent exertions
of the muscles of respiration, which succeed, are excited by the pain of
suffocation, for the purpose of pushing forwards the blood through the
compressed capillaries,