Page:Essay on the mineral waters of Carlsbad (1835).pdf/61

 of abdominal complaints can arise, such as weakness of the stomach, heart-burn, acidities, swelling, eructations, costiveness, which, complicated with derangements of the nervous system, obstruct the liver, the spleen, the mesentery, the epiploon, produce biliary concretions, jaundice in all its degrees, hypocondriasis with its visions, fluent and blind piles, head-ach, vertigo, and all sorts of arthritic, herpetic and urinary complaints.

Hypocondriacal affections appear no where under more various forms than at Carlsbad; and the misanthropic and pusillanimous feelings of those unfortunate beings, passing, without known motives, from hope to despondency, from moroseness to exaltation, deserve the greatest indulgence and sympathy. When we see so many hepatic and splenetic patients whose temper depends entirely on the state of their abdominal functions, we feel disposed to forgive the materialism of the ancients, who placed the seat of so many passions in the liver; we remember unwillingly the Fervens difficili bile tumet jecur, the jecur ulcerosum of Horace, as synonimoussynonymous [sic] of jealousy and violent love, and we understand how they could say that men splene rident, felle irascunt, jecore amant, pulmone jactantur, corde sapiunt.