Zoonomia/II.II.II.II

ORDO II.

Decreased Sensation.

GENUS II.

Of Particular Organs.

SPECIES.

1. Anorexia. Want of appetite. Some elderly people, and those debilitated by fermented liquors, are liable to lose their appetite for animal food; which is probably in part owing to the deficiency of gastric acid, as well as to the general decay of the system: elderly people will go on years without animal food; but inebriates soon sink, when their digestion becomes so far impaired. Want of appetite is sometimes produced by the putrid matter from many decaying teeth being perpetually mixed with the saliva, and thence affecting the organ of taste, and greatly injuring the digestion.

M. M. Fine charcoal powder diffused in warm water held in the mouth frequently in a day, as in Class I. 2. 4. 12. or solution of alum in water. Extract the decayed teeth. An emetic. A blister. Chalybeates. Vitriolic acid. Bile of an ox inspissated, and made into pills; 20 grains to be taken before dinner and supper. Opium half a grain twice a day.

All the strength we possess is ultimately derived from the food, which we are able to digest; whence a total debility of the system frequently follows the want of appetite, and of the power of digestion. Some young ladies I have observed to fall into this general debility, so as but just to be able to walk about; which I have sometimes ascribed to their voluntary fasting, when they believed themselves too plump; and who have thus lost both their health and beauty by too great abstinence, which could never be restored.

I have seen other cases of what may be termed anorexia epileptica, in which a total loss of appetite, and of the power of digestion, suddenly occurred along with epileptic fits. Miss B. a girl about eighteen, apparently very healthy, and rather plump, was seized with fits, which were at first called hysterical; they occurred at the end of menstruation, and returned very frequently with total loss of appetite. She was relieved by venesection, blisters, and opiates; her strength diminished, and after some returns of the fits, she took to her bed, and has survived 15 or 20 years; she has in general eaten half a potato a day, and seldom speaks, but retains her senses, and had many years occasional returns of convulsion. I have seen two similar cases, where the anorexia, or want of appetite, was in less degree; and but just so much food could be digested, as supplied them with sufficient strength to keep from the bed or sofa for half the day. As well as I can recollect, all these patients were attended with weak pulse, and cold pale skin; and received benefit by opium, from a quarter of a grain to a grain four times a day. See Class III. 1. 1. 7. and III. 1. 2. 1. and III. 1. 2. 20.

2. Adipsia. Want of thirst. Several of the inferior people, as farmers wives, have a habit of not drinking with their dinner at all, or only take a spoonful or two of ale after it. I have frequently observed these to labour under bad digestion, and debility in consequence; which I have ascribed to the too great stimulus of solid food undiluted, destroying in process of time the irritability of the stomach.

3. Impotentia (agenesia). Impotency much seldomer happens to the male sex than sterility to the female sex. Sometimes a temporary impotence occurs from bashfulness, or the interference of some voluntary exertion in the production of an effect, which should be performed alone by pleasurable sensation.

One, who was soon to be married to a lady of superior condition to his own, expressed fear of not succeeding on the wedding night; he was advised to take a grain of opium before he went to bed, and to accustom himself to sleep with a woman previously, but not to enjoy her, to take off his bashfulness; which succeeded to his wish.

M. M. Chalybeates. Opium. Bark. Tincture of cantharides.

4. Sterilitas. Barrenness. One of the ancient medical writers asserts, that the female sex become pregnant with most certainty at or near the time of menstruation. This is not improbable, since these monthly periods seem to referable the monthly venereal orgasm of some female quadrupeds, which become pregnant at those times only; and hence the computation of pregnancy is not often erroneous, though taken from the last menstruation. See Section XXXVI. 2. 3.

M. M. Opium a grain every night. Chalybeates in very small doses. Bark. Sea-bathing.

5. Insensibilitas artuum. As in some paralytic limbs. A great insensibility sometimes accompanies the torpor of the skin in cold fits of agues. Some parts have retained the sense of heat, but not the sense of touch. See Sect. XVI. 6.

M. M. Friction with flannel. A blister. Warmth.

6. Dysuria insensitiva. Insensibility of the bladder. A difficulty or total inability to make water attends some fevers with great debility, owing to the insensibility or inirritability of the bladder. This is a dangerous but not always a fatal symptom.

M. M. Draw off the water with a catheter. Assist the patient in the exclusion of it by compressing the lower parts of the abdomen with the hands. Wine two ounces, Peruvian bark one dram in decoction, every three hours alternately. Balsam of copaiva. Oil of almonds, with as much camphor as can be dissolved in it, applied as a liniment rubbed on the region of the bladder and perinæum, and repeated every four hours, was used in this disease with success by Mr. Latham. Med. Comment. 1791, p. 213.

7. Accumulatio alvina. An accumulation of feces in the rectum, occasioned by the torpor, or insensibility, of that bowel. But as liquids pass by these accumulations, it differs from the constipatio alvi, which is owing to too great absorption of the alimentary canal.

Old milk, and especially when boiled, is liable to induce this kind of costiveness in some grown persons; which is probably owing to their not possessing sufficient gastric acid to curdle and digest it; for as both these processes require gastric acid, it follows, that a greater quantity of it is necessary, than in the digestion of other aliments, which do not previously require being curdled. This ill digested milk not sufficiently stimulating the rectum, remains till it becomes a too solid mass. On this account milk seldom agrees with those, who are subject to piles, by inducing costiveness and large stools.

M. M. Extract the hardened scybala by means of a marrow-spoon; or by a piece of wire, or of whale-bone bent into a bow, and introduced. Injections of oil. Castor oil, or oil of almonds, taken by the mouth. A large clyster of smoak of tobacco. Six grains of rhubarb taken every night for many months. Aloes. An endeavour to establish a habit of evacuation at a certain hour daily. See Class I. 1. 3. 5.