At the end of fatal fevers it may arise from the acrimony of the undigested aliment, or from a part of the stomach being already dead, and by its weight or coldness affecting the surviving part with disagreeable sensation. The pain about the upper orifice of the stomach is the proximate cause, the too great or too little action of the fibres of this part of the stomach is the remote cause, the action of the muscles used in inspiration is the proximate effect, and the repercussion of the offending material is the remote effect.
Hiccough is sometimes sympathetic, occasioned by the pain of gravel in the kidney or ureter, as in Class IV. 1. 1. 7. and is sometimes a symptom of epilepsy or reverie, as in Sect. XIX. 2.
M. M. Oil of cinnamon from one drop gradually increased to ten, on sugar, or on chalk. Opium. Blister. Emetic.
7. _Asthma humorale._ The humoral asthma probably consists in a temporary anasarca of the lungs, which may be owing to a temporary defect of lymphatic absorption. Its cause is nevertheless at present very obscure, since a temporary deficiency of venous absorption, at the extremities of the pulmonary or bronchial veins, might occasion a similar difficulty of respiration. See Abortio, Class I. 2. 1. 14. Or it might be supposed, that the lymph effused into the cavity of the chest might, by some additional heat during sleep, acquire an aerial form, and thus compress the lungs; and on this circumstance the relief, which these patients receive from cold air, would be readily accounted for.
The paroxysms attack the patient in his first sleep, when the circulation through the lungs in weak people wants the assistance of the voluntary power. Class I. 2. 1. 3. And hence the absorbents of the lungs are less able to fulfil the whole of their duty. And part of the thin mucus, which is secreted into the air-cells, remains there unabsorbed, and occasions the difficult respiration, which awakes the patient. And the violent exertions of the muscles of respiration, which succeed, are excited by the pain of suffocation, for the purpose of pushing forwards the blood through the compressed capillaries, and to promote the absorption of the effused lymph.
In this the humoral differs from the convulsive asthma, treated of in Class III. 1. 1. 10. as in that there is probably no accumulated fluid to be absorbed; and the violent respiration is only an exertion for the purpose of relieving pain, either in the lungs or in some distant part, as in other convulsions, or epilepsy; and in this respect the fits of humoral and convulsive asthma essentially differ from each other, contrary to the opinion expressed without sufficient consideration in Sect. XVIII. 15.