ribed to witchcraft, and the
possession of devils.

In slower, more silent, but longer continued grief, the effects are
similar, but not so violent. The functions of the stomach are more
gently disturbed, its juices vitiated; and acidity, and other
symptoms of indigestion, will show themselves. Hence no bland and
nutritive chyle is conveyed into the blood; whence emaciation and
general debility must follow; and the patient will at last die, as it
is said, of a broken heart.

Besides the disturbed state of the stomach, and bad digestion, there
can be no sleep in this state of mind; for,

"Sleep, like the world, his ready visit pays,
Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes;
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear."

Hence the animal spirits will not be recruited, nor the worn out
organs restored to vigour.

The minds of patients labouring under this division of nervous
diseases, are likewise in general filled with over anxiety concerning
their health; attentive to every feeling, they find, in trifles light
as air, strong confirmations of their apprehensions.

It is evident, that in these cases, a state of direct debility
prevails, attended with a morbidly accumulated excitability; hence,
those remedies afford relief, which produce a quick exhaustion of
this principle, and thus blunt the feelings, and lull the mind into
some degree of forgetfulness of its woes. Hence opium, tobacco, and
the fetid gums are often resorted to; and in the hands of a judicious
practitioner, they will afford great relief, provided he carefully
watch the patient, and prevent their abuse; for, if left to the
discretion of the patient, he finds that kind of relief which he has
long wished for; his moderation knows no bounds, and he is apt to
take them in such a manner, as to add indirect debility, to direct,
and thus bring on a state of exhausted excitability, while there is
still a diminished state of mental stimulants. This will cause his
spirits to be more depressed than ever; he will therefore increase
the dose, whether it be of opium, tobacco, or spirituous liquors, and
thus he will be hurried on, adding fuel to the flame, till his
exhausted excitability becomes irrecoverable, and he ends his days in
a miserable state of imbecility, if not by suicide. Hence, though
some of these narcotic stimulants, which exhaust the excitability,
and blunt the feelings, may be employed wit