he
urinary bladder in the preceding article, possesses voluntary power of
motion; though these volitions are at times uncontrollable by the will,
when the acrimony of the contained feces, or their bulk, stimulate it to a
greater degree. Hence it happens, that this part is liable to lose its
voluntary power by paralysis, but is still liable to be stimulated into
action by the contained feces. This frequently occurs in fevers, and is a
bad sign as a symptom of general debility; and it is the sensibility of the
muscular fibres of this and of the urinary bladder remaining, after the
voluntarity has ceased, which occasions these two reservoirs so soon to
regain, as the fever ceases, their obedience to volition; because the
paralysis is thus shewn to be less complete in those cases than in common
hemiplegia; as in the latter the sense of touch, though perhaps not the
sense of pain, is generally destroyed in the paralytic limb.

M. M. A sponge introduced within the sphincter ani to prevent the constant
discharge, which should have a string put through it, by which it may be
retracted.

8. _Paresis voluntaria._ Indolence; or inaptitude to voluntary action. This
debility of the exertion of voluntary efforts prevents the accomplishment
of all great events in life. It often originates from a mistaken education,
in which pleasure or flattery is made the immediate motive of action, and
not future advantage; or what is termed duty. This observation is of great
value to those, who attend to the education of their own children. I have
seen one or two young married ladies of fortune, who perpetually became
uneasy, and believed themselves ill, a week after their arrival in the
country, and continued so uniformly during their stay; yet on their return
to London or Bath immediately lost all their complaints, and this
repeatedly; which I was led to ascribe to their being in their infancy
surrounded with menial attendants, who had flattered them into the
exertions they then used. And that in their riper years, they became torpid
for want of this stimulus, and could not amuse themselves by any voluntary
employment; but required ever after, either to be amused by other people,
or to be flattered into activity. This I suppose, in the other sex, to have
supplied one source of ennui and suicide.

9. _Catalepsis_ is sometimes used for fixed spasmodic contractions or
tetanus, as described in Sect. XXXIV. 1. 5. and in Class III. 1. 1. 13. but
is p