Aposematism

“ The fits of convulsive asthma return at periods, and are attended with cold extremities, and so far resemble the access of an intermittent fever; but, as the lungs are not sensible to the pain of cold, a shivering does not succeed, but instead of it violent efforts of respiration; which have no tendency, as in the humoral asthma, to dislodge any offending material, but only to relieve the pain by exertion, like the shuddering in the beginning of ague-fits, as explained Class III. 1. ”

“ Some asthmatics, with air-tubes more capricious and difficult to please than ordinary, make it the business of their lives to travel about in search of the air best suited to them. Thus, in their wanderings, they experience every conceivable degree of exasperation of, or exemption from, their disease; possibly in some lovely spot where the patient would willingly abide as in an earthly Eden, the asthma suddenly and rudely grips him by the throat and bids him depart or die. ”

“ One lady I knew, who for many years laboured under an asthma, which ceased on her being afflicted with pain, swelling, and distortion of some of her large joints, which were esteemed gouty, but perhaps erroneously. And a young man, whom I saw yesterday, was seized with asthma on the retrocession, or ceasing of eruptions on his face.
The convulsive asthma, as well as the hydropic, are more liable to return in hot weather; which may be occasioned by the less quantity of oxygen existing in a given quantity of warm air, than of cold, which can be taken into the lungs at one inspiration. ”

“ The skin is cold, there is great depression, and the pulse is small and weak. The respiration is affected, the breathing being slow and irregular, the breath smelling strongly of the liquid, and the odour often persisting for days. A further stage is that of loss of consciousness, and this comes on with all the suddenness of a fit of apoplexy. [186] The coma is also similar in appearance to apoplectic coma, but there have frequently been seen trismus and convulsions of the extremities. ”

“ The pain of the worst stage of the physical disease distracts it more and more so that it thinks it would be more comfortable in any other body than its present one. In confusion, this central force of the astral body enters with that body into the volume of air which fills the physical body, thinking it will gain relief from the unbearable pain. And no sooner the astral body, which is very subtle and finer than the air, enters into it, than it passes out, thus air-encased, through the mouth, causing the death of the physical body. ”

“ From considering the history of this disease, and comparing it with the appearance of the lungs after death, I cannot but be of opinion, that the violent efforts to vomit occasioned primarily both the emphysema, and the varices of the pulmonary vein. This opinion, I flatter myself, will not, to persons well versed in the animal œconomy, seem ill founded, when they reflect how forcibly the lungs are pressed in violent efforts to vomit, both by the muscles subservient to respiration and the abdominal muscles, as well as by the contents of the abdomen itself. ”

“ Another disease, the periods of which generally commence during our sleep, is the asthma. Whatever may be the remote cause of paroxysms of asthma, the immediate cause of the convulsive respiration, whether in the common asthma, or in what is termed the convulsive asthma, which are perhaps only different degrees of the same disease, must be owing to violent voluntary exertions to relieve pain, as in other convulsions; and the increase of irritability to internal stimuli, or of sensibility, during sleep must occasion them to commence at this time. ”

“ Physical suffering had also considerable influence in causing him to turn his eyes inward; inclining him rather to brood over the thoughts and emotions of his own soul than to glance abroad, and to make, as in "Queen Mab", the whole universe the object and subject of his song. In the Spring of 1815, an eminent physician pronounced that he was dying rapidly of a consumption; abscesses were formed on his lungs, and he suffered acute spasms. Suddenly a complete change took place; and though through life he was a martyr to pain and debility, every symptom of pulmonary disease vanished. ”

“ The weak action of the heart, and its febrile state, should be the natural causes which conduce to the present irregularity in the catamenia, and insomnia at night; the poverty of blood in the liver, and the sluggish condition of that organ must necessarily produce pain in the ribs; while the overdue of the catamenia, the cardiac fever, and debility of the respiration of the lungs, should occasion frequent giddiness in the head, and swimming of the eyes, the certain recurrence of perspiration between the periods of 3 to 5 and 5 to 7, and the sensation of being seated on board ship. ”

“ Loss of Control.—Occasionally in elderly neurotic people over-fatigue induces an attack of asthma about the time that sleep becomes deep. This usually occurs after the first hour or two of sleep. The inhibitory power of the nervous system over spasmodic contraction of the lung tissues seems lost in deep sleep and then the asthmatic condition develops. The greater the effort to breathe the more intense does the contraction become, until the antispasmodic effect of the presence of a lessened amount of oxygen and an abnormal quantity of carbon dioxide in the blood makes itself felt. ”

“ His suffering, too, is chiefly mental, but he experiences the additional discomforts of exhaustion, cold, and hunger, if his struggle for life is a prolonged one.
It is believed that the rapidity and painlessness of death by drowning are due chiefly to the speedy obstruction of the circulation of the blood through the lungs. In ordinary asphyxia, by the simple deprivation of air, the blood throughout the body becomes charged with carbonic acid, and the arteries as well as the veins become filled with venous blood. ”

“ For the chief danger of chronic asthma is the probability of serious pathological complications. The direct result of dyspnœa is the impoverishment of the blood by an impeded process of aeration, and the concomitants of the disease are therefore analogous to those of pulmonary phthisis and protracted in-door life—hypertrophy of the heart, emphysema, or swelling of the lungs, inflammation of the bronchi, dropsical swellings of the extremities. ”

“ This man has a very robust frame of body, and has been accustomed to a free use of ardent spirits, and of opium, of which he now takes about twelve grains in a day. His appearance is such, that, on a slight survey, one would not suppose him diseased, but, on observing him with a little attention, a shortness and labour of respiration are perceived, with some interruption in speaking, and a frequent catching of the breath, or sighing. ”

“ The disease, spasmodic asthma, just alluded to, as to its effects is so nearly allied to many of those related, that there can be no doubt they arise from a common cause, irritating particles floating in the air, or atmospheric influences. A man goes to bed perfectly well, and awakens in the night with a difficulty of breathing, which threatens to suffocate him ”

“ When the Empress listened to him and heard what he suffered she seemed to be suffering from the same disease herself and her breathing too was caught by asthma, so deeply affected was she by the Emperor's words. She frequently sent for the more skilled physicians and compelled them to enquire closely into the nature of the disease, and asked to be taught the immediate and the indirect cause of it. They placed their hands on his arteries and acknowledged that they found in every movement of the arteries proof of multifold irregularities, but they were quite unable to discover the cause. ”

“ After remaining in this horrid state three years, the patient died.
We have already remarked several times, that the respiration in onanists is frequently affected. Their breath is often short; they pant on the slightest exercise; are subject to stifling, &c. These symptoms, the existence of which cannot always be explained by that of any organic alteration in the heart or lungs, finally assume, in some individuals, the characters attributed to nervous asthma. The authors who have written on this subject, have all classed venereal excesses among its most frequent causes. ”

“ Do physicians, when prescribing this poison, ever reflect that this elevation of the pulse, which they employ themselves so sedulously to lower, is an effort of nature to supply more oxygen to the system by an increased action of the lungs, and that the more the lungs are injured by disease, the greater is this compensating effort of nature: just as a blacksmith must work a small or defective bellows more rapidly than a large one, to keep his fire going. ”

“ To lie on one’s back, as it were, in a relaxed state, and to sink downwards in bed, are indications of extreme debility. It is still worse to have a cold respiration at the mouth and nostrils; and a pulse obscure, dense, and intermitting, and profuse sweatings with syncope are most mortal symptoms. If all the symptoms we have mentioned, or even more appear, or if they be fewer in number but strong, and if they be without any of the favorable ones, death is inevitable. ”

“ Any peculiar feeling, such as that of the hand or foot going to sleep, is set down at once as a symptom of a serious nervous disease, or if the patient has heard that in old people numbness of the extremities is a forerunner of apoplexy, he is sure to conclude that apoplexy is threatening in his own case. ”

“ IV. There are cases where nature is idle, as in the atonic stages of the gout, the cancer, the epilepsy, the mania, the venereal disease, the apoplexy, and the tetanus [13] .
V. There are cases in which nature does mischief. She wastes herself with an unnecessary fever, in a dropsy and consumption. She throws a plethora upon the brain and lungs in the apoplexy and peripneumonia notha. She ends a pleurisy and peripneumony in a vomica, or empyema. She creates an unnatural appetite for food in the hypochondriac disease. ”

“ In consequence of the excitement of the nerves of the larynx, &c., the respiratory muscles, particularly those which perform the functions of expiration, become affected by spasms, whereby the free admission of the irritating air into the lungs is promoted. This is manifest by the excessive paroxysms, very similar to that which ensues on an attack of Asthma, which immediately follows an artificial irritation, the membrane of the larynx. ”

“ And in no time you can get some blood into your cheeks, and cultivate some muscle, and straighten out your lungs. Once there was a boy who was in worse shape than you are, because he had the asthma, and could hardly breathe. ”

“ The premonitory symptoms of apoplexy are giddiness, pain and swimming in the head, loss of memory, faltering in speech or using one word for another, diminished sensibility either of body or mind, or both, drowsiness, noises in the ears, specks floating before the eyes, nightmare, frightful dreams, laborious respiration, heavy yet unrefreshing sleep, an inclination to sigh without any moral cause, cramp in the legs at night when there is no irritation of the bowels to account for them, &c. ”

“ In a certain number of these cases, there is some emphysema present, that is, overdistention of the lungs, such as is seen in high-chested people. Owing to the long anterio-posterior diameter of the chest and the fact that as a consequence it is nearly as thick through as it is wide, this form of chest is sometimes spoken of as barrel-chest. Patients who have it are particularly likely to suffer from asthma if they have any dread of heart trouble or if they are of a nervous constitution. ”

“ The mind is extremely vacillating, at one time depressed, at another, elated with hopes of recovery. Profuse diarrhœas, alternated with obstinate torpor of the bowels, exhaust the patient; the eyes assume a ghastly and pearly whiteness; the mouth becomes filled with apthous eruptions; sometimes hiccup ensues; the patient’s mind becoming more and more disturbed, delirium comes on, which soon terminates in death.
An assemblage of some or all these symptoms, constitutes Phthisis Pulmonalis, differing however very materially in number, degree and violence in different patients. ”

“ As a rule, the worse these cases seem in their intensity and the more the patient is anxious, the more surely are they merely of functional nervous origin; above all, the more complaints of lack of air and of fear of impending death that are made, the more likely is the patient to be all right within a few hours. Asthma looks as though it must be due to some serious organic condition. Of course, in many cases of difficult breathing, even with asthma-like attacks, there are underlying serious conditions of heart and kidneys that are extremely dangerous. ”

“ The air we breathe, which a great English physician calls gaseous food, may become impure to the degree of being indigestible to our lungs and utterly unfit for the performance of functions which are quite as important as those of our solid and fluid victuals. Dull headaches, nausea, loss of appetite and of the sense of smell, and the sadness produced by the unsatisfied hunger after oxygen, are only incidental and secondary evils; the great principal curse of the troglodyte-habit is its influence on the respiratory organs. ”