The lungs, too, must be carefully examined, but this rather for their negative than their positive results ; for we are not now dealing with symptoms relating to severe disease, but with the little torments which invalids frequently suffer ; and, for their suocegsful treatment, we are rather indebted to experience than to pathology.
A step further brings us to the organs of digestion, which are more often the apparent exciting cause of functional disturbance than any other. But it is in their minor derangements only, that be justified in regarding the cerebral symptoms as km tional. A bilious headache is a thing of every day occurrence ; but we must carefully analyze what is meant when a person says he is bilious ; we may employ such a phrase as a compendious expression of a certain state, but we must be careful how we listen to it from the mouth of a patient. Frequent vomiting, obstinate constipation, or severe diarrhcea must make us look further into the case ; slight nausea, loss of appetite, discomfort during digestion, and irregularity.in the action of the bowels, may justify the conclusion that the uneasy sensations in the head are only functional. In addition to this it will be found in practice that a patient seldom applies for relief at their first occurrence, when connected with derangement of the digestive organs. Dyspeptic symptoms arise by such slow degrees that few have reached the middle period of life without suffering from them : and it is only when they are more than ordinarily severe that advice is sought : to some people they become the ordinary state of health, and immunity from them the exception; they have had their head aches over and over again, and begin to look upon.them as neces sary evils, till some strange sensation arouses suspicion of unknown mischief. The frequent recurrence of such head-symptoms--their habitual association with attacks of more severe indigestion or more than usual irregularity in the bowels—their transitory cha racter, and the circumstance that excitement and motion succeed in dispelling them after a little starvation, or a little purgation— all this affords valuable assistance in discriminating these transient disturbances from the more severe forms of a cerebral disease.
The state of the urine, after all that has been said of the con nection of diseases of the brain with those of the kidney, will not fail to be investigated.
The state of the sexual organs is chiefly related to that form of disorder which we have denominated the nervous. We have
seen something of this mysterious connection in hysteria,—a con dition which tends greatly to heighten and augment the symp toms derived' from this source, though they may have their existence quite independent of it; but all the disorders of these organs, and especially their undue excitement, must be borne in mind in relation to " nervous" disorders. Painful as the inquiry must be to every right feeling man, we must not neglect the sug gestions of the wan aspect and the shrinking eye of a young man in a state of nervousness bordering on insanity, who has brought upon himself as the fruit of his vices, the penalty of a constant spermatorrhcea ; duty commands us to endeavor to save him from himself, no less than from the clutches of the disgusting charlatan who only keeps up while he preys upon the disorder. But we tread upon delicate ground, and I must earnestly warn my younger readers against the scarcely less obnoxious and obscene familiar ities of the legitimate specialist.
This class of cases borders much more closely on the organic, diseases which have been already discussed than either of the preceding ; sometimes it is hard to be discriminated from mental alienation. The over-worked brain of the professional man who is laboring after eminence or wealth, and, still more, the over excited brain of the stock-jobber or speculator, after a time be comes exhausted and unfit for the longer performance of duties beyond its strength ; and apoplexy, paralysis, meningitis, or de mentia, put a sudden stop to his foolish schemes. It is vain to attempt any more correct classification of these symptoms; but with reference to diagnosis, it is well to remember that they may be but the precursors of more serious mischief On the other hand, it is always a state of depressed vitality which gives pro minence to symptoms generally called "nervous." Over anxiety and care, whether accompanied by straitened circumstances, which deprive the individual of many of the comforts, perhaps of the necessaries of life,—or leading to irregular hours, when the system is alternately exhausted by long fasting, and taxed by subsequent repletion,—not less than a life marked by habits of gayety, dissipation, and excess, must in course of time undermine the strongest constitutions, and expose them to these attacks. By repairing the waste, giving tone to the system and relaxation to the brain, we can best hope to relieve present symptoms, and ward off more serious mischief.