The inflammation of a part is generally preceded by a torpor or quiescence of it; if this exists in any large congeries of glands, as in the liver, or any membranous part, as the stomach, pain is produced and chilliness in consequence of the torpor of the vessels. In this situation sometimes an inflammation of the parts succeeds the torpor; at other times a distant more sensible part becomes inflamed; whose actions have previously been associated with it; and the torpor of the first part ceases. This I apprehend happens, when the gout of the foot succeeds a pain of the biliary duct, or of the stomach. Lastly, it sometimes happens, that the pain of torpor exists without any consequent inflammation of the affected part, or of any distant part associated with it, as in the membranes about the temple and eye-brows in hemicrania, and in those pains, which occasion convulsions; if this happens to gouty people, when it affects the liver, I suppose epileptic fits are produced; and, when it affects the stomach, death is the consequence. In these cases the pulse is weak, and the extremities cold, and such medicines as stimulate the quiescent parts into action, or which induce inflammation in them, or in any distant part, which is associated with them, cures the present pain of torpor, and saves the patient.
I have twice seen a gouty inflammation of the liver, attended with jaundice; the patients after a few days were both of them affected with cold fits, like ague-fits, and their feet became affected with gout, and the inflammation of their livers ceased. It is probable, that the uneasy sensations about the stomach, and indigestion, which precedes gouty paroxysms, are generally owing to torpor or slight inflammation of the liver, and biliary ducts; but where great pain with continued sickness, with feeble pulse, and sensation of cold, affect the stomach in patients debilitated by the gout, that it is a torpor of the stomach itself, and destroys the patient from the great connexion of that viscus with the vital organs. See Sect. XXV. 17.
1. _Of swallowing our food. Ruminating animals._ 2. _Action of the stomach._ 3. _Action of the intestines. Irritative motions connected with these._ 4. _Effects of repletion._ 5. _Stronger action of the stomach and intestines from more stimulating food._ 6. _Their action inverted by still greater stimuli. Or by disgustful ideas. Or by volition._ 7. _Other glands strengthen or invert their motions by sympathy._ 8. _Vomiting performed by intervals._ 9. _Inversion of the cutaneous absorbents._ 10. _Increased secretion of bile and pancreatic juice._ 11. _Inversion of the lacteals._ 12. _And of the bile-ducts._ 13. _Case of a cholera._ 14. _Further account of the inversion of lacteals._ 15. _Iliac passions. Valve of the colon._ 16. _Cure of the iliac passion._ 17. _Pain of gall-stone distinguished from pain of the stomach. Gout of the stomach from torpor, from inflammation. Intermitting pulse owing to indigestion. To overdose of foxglove. Weak pulse from emetics. Death from a blow on the stomach. From gout of the stomach._