FEYPOCHONDRIASIS AND SICK READ-ACH : the disease of erudition and study.
The elegant and accurate Aretzus ex presses himself to the following effect, in his very valuable chapter on diseases of the stomach.
" The stomach is a grand seat of plea surable feelings and of disquie tude. When its action is perfect, firmness and elastici ty of fibre in conjunction with a ruddy complexion indicate health, and the diges tion is easy. On the contrary, when the stomach is disquieted, there is an aversion to food ; not only when it is placed on the table, but to the very thought of it, and dejection of mind is the consequence of insufficent nausea, anx iety, collections of fluid in the stomach, and cardialgia, ensue, and sometimes in. creased flow of saliva and vomiting. Though the whole body suffers stomach remains empty, yet greater suf fering is produced when necessity has required food to be taken, and it is masti cated with aversion, and swallowed with still greater disgust, and pain more intol erable than hunger ensues, and the pain between the shoulders increases ; dim ness of sight, tingling of the ears, and heaviness of the head, take place, with torpor of the limbs, feebleness of the ex tremities, and sensations of palpitation about the prwcordia ; patients feel them selves agitated, and as it were driven to and fro like reeds or trees by a gust of wind ; they are sleepless, though heavy and ready to fall asleep in a state resem bling coma ; they are meagre, pale, lan guid, deprived of strength, inactive, inani. mate, and indolent, but they are sudden ly excited to anger : their situation much resembles that of melancholia, with which disease they frequently become affected." Aretmus proceeds to state time causes of the affection he has described ; it at tacks those, he says, who from necessity have lived on thin and spare diet, and those of laborious and patient erudition, who are so absorbed in the precepts and practice of philosophy, as to hold in con tempt a plenty and variety of nourish- • ment; they never change the scene, or take exercise, or indulge in any relaxation of mind; their love of learning detaches them from every other consideration, from their country, their parents, their kindred, from themselves, for the whole of their lives ; pale and wan at all times, in youth they have all the infirmities of age ; their mind, from exhaustion, be comes enervated and cloudy, and they seldom indulge in cheerfulness, and laughter and mirth are strangers to them.
Such is a faint and very indifferent sketch of the admirable picture drawn by Aretxus, so far as it applies to modern hypochondriasis, as proceeding chiefly from undue mental labour and exertion. To persons of this character it does not often happen, that the symptoms they experience are the sole result of poor feeding from necessity : yet it certainly does occur to hypochondriacs, to have their complaints aggravated from want of regular meals, and many persons fall into this disease, in a great measure, from never thinking of taking any sustenance till their very late hour, of dinner ; and when the disease has prevailed for some time, they frequently form rules of diet for themselves, or derive them from the advice of all whom they may have oc casionally consulted, and they very com monly attend more to the cautions they have received against the hedentia, than to any encouragement as to the juvantia ; depend for restitution of health on avoiding all that has been pointed out to them as wrong, and will scarcely believe that much benefit is to be derived from a good light meal,1Sr from taking at inter vals any small quantity of exhilarating nourishment.
Most of the symptoms already enume rated under acidity of the stomach make their appearance in the present disease, though varied in every diversity of combi nation : in addition to which there is ge nerally costiveness, and a peculiar affec tion of the head, a dead heavy pain, some times exacerbated to acute distress, and always accompanied with that idiopathic nausea of the stomach, which is well characterised by the name of sick-head ache.