or disturbance of the mind, and general debility, may also be its sequences.

Plethoric, robust persons, with a large head, and short, thick neck, are predisposed to apoplexy. The disease occurs most frequently between the fortieth and sixtieth year of life, and is brought on, or favored, by the following exciting causes: inflammation of important viscera, of the brain in particular; nervous diseases; lesions of the heart or large blood-vessels, causing disturbances of the circulation; debilitating, depressing passions; considerable loss of blood, and other fluids.

The treatment of this dangerous disease is no easy task for the most experienced physician; the non-professional reader should, therefore, never venture to undertake the treatment. Where medical aid cannot be immediately obtained, the following rules should be observed: in the first place, all the wearing apparel must be removed, and the patient must be placed in the sitting posture; a few buckets of cold water should then be poured over him, whilst several persons rub his body continually. If vomiting ensue, it must be encouraged, by administering to him at first tepid, and subsequently cold water. Clysters should be immediately used. When the patient is somewhat restored, he must be enveloped in the wet sheets, to perspire. The sheets should not be closely adapted to the body, least of all confine the neck. The patient must lie almost in the sitting posture in bed, and requires careful watching, that we may be able to afford him the necessary assistance in case of another attack. With the second accession, he must be immediately removed from the sheets, and subjected again to friction and affusion. If the desired perspiration appear,

The envelope

it should be encouraged, if possible, for some time, and we must administer cold water to the patient, provided he can swallow. When the patient is removed from the envelopement, every thing should be in readiness for a rapid ablution, in order that we may return him quickly to bed, and cover him well up; for it is imperatively necessary to keep up the action of the skin. If the patient improve considerably with this treatment, we may repeat it every twentyfour hours until he is able to leave his bed. ment in the wet sheet must be subsequently continued once daily; the patient, however, need not perspire, but should merely remain in the sheets until he becomes warm. Where the skin is very dry and brittle, and evinces but little activity, the patient must sweat again every third or fourth day; and the parts chiefly affected must be covered with warming bandages, rubbed, and frequently washed with cold water. If the parts do not acquire their perfect activity by these proceedings, the douche must be brought into application, and the whole of the treatment necessary in paralysis."-WEISS.

Fainting.

Fainting is a well-known malady, denoted by a certain diminution or total suspension of consciousness, sensation, motion, respiration, and circulation. A severe form of fainting, the total suspension of all the evidences of vitality, but where life continues, is called suspended animation, (asphryia,) in common parlance "a trance." Fainting is sometimes preceded by weariness, a disordered head, vertigo, dimness of sight, palpitation, nausea, anxiety, and pallor of countenance.

The duration of a fainting fit is, generally speaking, confined to a few minutes; the patient then recovers with sighing, the passage of flatus, with vomiting, or evacuation of the bowels, and the warmth of the body and the color of the countenance then gradually return.

Hysterical or hypochondrical persons, and patients suffering from congestions, are most subject to fainting.

The first point in the treatment of syncope, is to remove all articles of clothing which confine the body, as tight cravats, waistbands, and garters. The patient must then be placed in the sitting posture, and sprinkled or washed with cold water, until the fit is over. To diminish the predisposition to fainting, the body should be washed daily with cold water, and the patient should drink nothing but pure cold water, avoiding all warm narcotic beverages, and should, further, take much exercise in the open air. Clysters are likewise indicated."-WEISS.

Apparent Death.

"This is distinguished from actual death, by the absence of symptoms of decomposition; of the cadaverous odor and of the blue or green spots on the skin. Persons, apparently dead, frequently retain consciousness, feeling, and especially the sense of hearing for several days; but they are totally incapable of moving or of giving other signs of life.

The causes of asphyxia are various, viz., exposure to deleterious gases, carbonic acid gas, the air in sewers and cellars, where new fermenting wines are deposited, difficult parturition, constriction of the air passages; it is also the effect of continued violent cold, &c.

The first attention must be paid, in the treatment of the half-dead, to the removal of all wearing apparel, and to procure them pure fresh air, especially in summer time. Our next proceeding must be to pour cold water upon them occasionally from a certain height; they should then be well rubbed and brushed by several persons, the pit of the stomach and the soles of the feet more particularly: we may also endeavor to inflate the lungs, and use clysters. Where all these attempts are fruitless, we may tickle the fauces with a feather, and try a warm bath, especially in cases of hanging, strangulation, and of drowning."-WEISS.

Torpor from Cold.

"Persons in a state of torpor from cold should be laid on snow in a moderately cold place, and the whole body should be covered with snow; and where this is not to be obtained, they should be immersed into cold water, leaving the mouth and nose only free; in this bath the patients must remain until symptoms of life are observed. They are then to be conveyed to an unwarmed bed, and the whole body must be rubbed with flannel, but cautiously, to avoid injury to the skin. When animation returns, cold water must be administered to the patients until they can assist themselves to drink. Frozen limbs, or parts affected by frost, should be treated with snow or cold water, and with foot and handbaths; bandages and ablutions may also be brought into operation. Where open sores or ulcerations are observed, we must use water of a higher temperature, to heal them." -WEISS.

Remarks on Crisis, and Cases. By Sir Charles Scudamore.

The very important matter of crisis is always sought for with much solicitude both by Priessnitz and the patient. He believes that it could not be produced in a healthy man ; and that its occurrence is a sure proof that nature is successfully exerting herself to throw off the disease, by the exit of bad humor from the mass of blood. It is a sort of wholesale theory, and equally serves for all persons, and for every known disorder; and assuredly is the most convenient for one ignorant of medical science. I conceive that Priessnitz must have been gradually led to this idea of morbid blood by the observations which his experience enabled him to make; for, as before explained, he entered into the water-cure practice* by accident, and not from tuition. His principles have arisen out of practice as an empiric art, and were not as a precursor first implanted in his mind. He has, in innumerable instances, so that the contrary forms the exception to the rule, witnessed the formation of crisis in the progress of the water-cure, amongst which boils take the lead in pre-eminence and importance of character. But the term also applies to any very marked disturbance of the system, or cutaneous change; as the crisis fever; odorous perspiration; odorous urine; vomitings; diarrhoea; hæmorrhoidal discharge of blood; and various kinds of eruptions on the skin. It was a fact of ordinary

*I employ this term in its just signification, meaning experience, not charlatanism, from which I believe Priessnitz to be entirely free.