Erasmus Darwin

“ Whence though a certain quantity of vinous spirit stimulates the whole system into increased action, and perhaps even increases the secretion of sensorial power in the brain; yet as soon as any degree of vertigo is produced, it is a proof, that by the too great expenditure of sensorial power by the stomach, and its nearest associated motions, the more distant ones, as those of vision, become imperfectly exerted. From hence may be deduced the necessity of exhibiting wine in fevers with weak pulse in only appropriated quantity ”

“ Chillness after dinner frequently attends weak people, or those who have been exhausted by exercise; it arises from the great expenditure of the sensorial power on the organs of digestion, which are stimulated into violent action by the aliment; and the vessels of the skin, which are associated with them, become in some measure torpid by reverse sympathy ”

“ Vertigo in fevers either proceeds from the general deficiency of sensorial power belonging to the irritative associations, or to a greater expenditure of it on some links of the trains and tribes of associated irritative motions. There is however a slighter vertigo attending all people, who have been long confined in bed, on their first rising; owing to their having been so long unused to the apparent motions of objects in their erect posture, or as they pass by them, that they have lost in part the habit of balancing themselves by them. ”

“ The vertigo visualis is owing to less perfect vision, and is not accompanied with pleasurable sensation. This frequently occurs in strokes of the palsy, and is then succeeded by vomiting; it sometimes precedes epileptic fits, and often attends those, whose sight begins to be impaired by age. ”

“ These organs of sense are constantly stimulated into action by the saliva or by the air; hence, like the sense of hunger, when they are torpid from want of stimulus, or from want of sensorial power, pain or disagreeable sensation ensues, as of hunger, or faintness, or sickness in one case; and the ideas of bad tastes or odours in the other. This accords with the laws of causation, Sect. IV. 5.
17. Pulsus mollis in vomitione. The softness of the pulse in the act of vomiting is caused by direct association between the heart and the stomach ”

“ A great many more nice and attentive observations are wanted to elucidate these curious circumstances of association, which will be found to be of the greatest importance in the cure of many diseases, and lead us to the knowledge of fever. ”

“ As irritative muscular motions are attended with pain, when they are exerted too weakly, as well as when they are exerted too strongly; so irritative ideas become attended with sensation, when they are exerted too weakly, as well as when they are exerted too strongly. ”

“ When young infants are afflicted with griping joined with costiveness, I have sometimes directed them to be taken out of a warm bed, and carried about for a few minutes in a cool room, with almost instant relief. ”

“ This is generally ascribed to indigestion; but it ceases spontaneously, as the patient acquires the habit of balancing himself by less distinct objects.
A gentleman about 50 was seized with an uncommon degree of vertigo, so as to fall on the ground, and not to be able to turn his head, as he sat up either in his chair or in his bed, and this continued eight or ten weeks. As he had many decayed teeth in his mouth, and the vertigo was preceded and sometimes accompanied by pains on one side of his head, the disease of a tooth was suspected to be the cause. ”