Diseases > Domestic medicine

411 buchan's
The urine is sometimes in small quantities, at
other times very copious and quite clear. There is
a great straitness of the breast, with difficulty or
breathing ; violent palpitations of the heart; sudden
flushings of heat in various parts of the body; at
other times a sense of cold, as if water were
poured on them; flying pains in the arms and
limbs; pains in the back and belly, resembling
those occasioned by gravel; the pulse very variable,
sometimes uncommonly slow, and at other times
very quick ; yawning, the hiccup, frequent sighing,
and a sense of suffocation, as if from a ball or lump
in the throat; alternate fits of crying and convulsive
laughing; the sleep is unsound and seldom refresh¬
ing ; and the patient is often troubled with the
night-mare.
As the disease increases, the patient is molested
with head-achs, cramps, and fixed pains in various
parts of the body; the eyes are clouded, and often
affected with pain and dryness; there is a noise in the
ears, and often a dulness of hearing; in short, the
whole animal functions are impaired. The mind is
disturbed on the most trivial occasions, and is
hurried into the most perverse commotions, in¬
quietudes, terror, sadness, anger, diffidence, &c.
The patient is apt to entertain wild imaginations and
extravagant fancies ; the memory becomes weak, and
the judgment fails.
Nothing is more characteristic of this disease than
a constant dread of death. This renders those
unhappy persons who labour under it peevish, fickle,
impatient, and apt to run from one physcian to
another; which is one reason why they seldom reap
any benefit from medicine, as they have not sufficient
resolution to persist in any one course till it has time to