and to promote the absorption of the effused lymph.

In this the humoral differs from the convulsive asthma, treated of in Class
III. 1. 1. 10. as in that there is probably no accumulated fluid to be
absorbed; and the violent respiration is only an exertion for the purpose
of relieving pain, either in the lungs or in some distant part, as in other
convulsions, or epilepsy; and in this respect the fits of humoral and
convulsive asthma essentially differ from each other, contrary to the
opinion expressed without sufficient consideration in Sect. XVIII. 15.

The patients in the paroxysms both of humoral and convulsive asthma find
relief from cold air, as they generally rise out of bed, and open the
window, and put out their heads; for the lungs are not sensible to cold,
and the sense of suffocation is somewhat relieved by there being more
oxygen contained in a given quantity of cold fresh air, than in the warm
confined air of a close bed-chamber.

I have seen humoral asthma terminate in confirmed anasarca, and destroy the
patient, who had been an excessive drinker of spirituous potation. And M.
Savage asserts, that this disease frequently terminates in diabetes; which
seems to shew, that it is a temporary dropsy relieved by a great flow of
urine. Add to this, that these paroxysms of the asthma are themselves
relieved by profuse sweats of the upper parts of the body, as explained in
Class I. 3. 2. 8. which would countenance the idea of their being
occasioned by congestions of lymph in the lungs.

The congestion of lymph in the lungs from the defective absorption of it is
probably the remote cause of humoral asthma; but the pain of suffocation is
the immediate cause of the violent exertions in the paroxysms. And whether
this congestion of lymph in the air-cells of the lungs increases during our
sleep, as above suggested, or not; the pain of suffocation will be more and
more distressing after some hours of sleep, as the sensibility to internal
stimuli increases during that time, as described in Sect. XVIII. 15. For
the same reason many epileptic fits, and paroxysms of the gout, occur
during sleep.

In two gouty cases, complicated with jaundice, and pain, and sickness, the
patients had each of them a shivering fit, like the commencement of an
ague, to the great alarm of their friends; both which commenced in the
night, I suppose during their sleep; and the consequence was a cessation of
the jaundice, and pain about the sto