Page:Medical Inquiries and Observations Upon the Diseases of the Mind - Benjamin Rush.djvu/219



second grade of general madness, which I have called manicula, differs from mania, as chronic rheumatism differs from that which is acute, that is, in being accompanied with a more moderate degree of the same symptoms. The pulse is usually synocula, typhoid or typhus. It is in this case of madness that we discover that peculiar sensibility to cold, which is generally absent in its highest and lowest grades. Shakspeare, who saw this disease in common life, and out of the restraints and conveniences of a hospital, has very happily illustrated this symptom in the character of Edgar, whom he often makes to exclaim, in counterfeiting madness, "poor Tom's a cold." From the operations of fresh exciting causes, manicula now and then rises into mania, in which state it is sometimes cured, but it oftener descends in a few days or weeks to its chronic, or habitual form. It is now and then com-