a good constitution, and being brought up in the
country in a hardy manner, I am so much predisposed to the sthenic
state, that I may consider the state of my excitement, as generally,
indeed almost always, above the point of health: and unless I live in
the most temperate, and even abstemious manner, the excitement is
extremely liable to overstep the bounds of predisposition, and fall
into sthenic disease. I have had several attacks of this kind of
disease; and indeed, I never remember to have laboured under any
disease of debility, or diminished excitement.

Health, according to the view we have taken of it, may be compared to
a musical string, tuned to a certain pitch, or note; and though
perhaps in the great bulk of mankind, either from the manner of
living, or from other circumstances, the excitement is a little
below, and requires to be screwed up to the healthy pitch, yet there
are others where it is apt to get constantly above, and where it
requires letting down to this pitch; my constitution is one of these:
but I have this consolation, that if I can for a few years ward off
the fatal effects of some acute sthenic diseases, this tendency to
sthenic diathesis will gradually wear off, and I may probably enjoy a
state of good health, at a time, when most constitutions of an
opposite cast begin to give way. Whenever I have for some time lived
rather fully, though by no means intemperately, after having for some
days, or perhaps some weeks experienced an unusually good flow of
spirits, and taken exercise with pleasure, I begin, first of all, to
have disturbed sleep, I find myself inclined to sleep in the morning,
as if I had not been refreshed by the night's sleep; my spirits
become low, and I am apt to look upon the gloomy side of every thing
I undertake or do. I feel a general sense of languor and debility,
and am ready, as I have heard many patients labouring under the same
state exclaim, to sink into the earth. From the slightest causes, I
am apt to apprehend the most serious evils, and my temper becomes
irritable, and scarcely to be pleased with any thing. If in this
state, I take exercise, I soon feel myself fatigued; a disagreeable
stupor comes on, without, however, the least degree of perspiration,
and I feel an inability to move.

At first, I used to imagine these to be symptoms of debility, or
diminished excitement, nor was it till after several ineffectual
trials to relieve them by the tonic, or stimula