rest of the asthenic diseases. The mode of living is
such as brings on indirect debility, or exhaustion of the
excitability, such as the use of rich and highly seasoned food, and a
daily use of fermented liquors. These at first certainly produce
vigour, or strength, and will be the cause of sthenic diseases; but
they are generally taken in such a manner, that, though they produce
a degree of excitement above the point of health, still they only
approach the line of sthenic disease, without in general falling into
it. They continue, however, to exhaust the excitability, and by the
time that the vigour of the body begins naturally to decline, the
system of a person who has lived in this manner is unusually torpid;
all the blood vessels, which have hitherto been distended with rich
blood, begin to lose their tone, from their excitability having been
exhausted by the use of these powerful stimulants; but this torpor is
particularly and first experienced in those parts which have been
more immediately subject to the action of the exciting causes; viz.
the stomach and bowels: symptoms of indigestion occur, and the
excitability of these organs having been almost entirely exhausted by
the violent action of the stimulants applied, cannot now be roused to
any healthy action; the food is not properly digested, but runs into
a kind of fermentation, which causes an extrication of gas: this
distends the stomach and bowels, and produces pains, uneasy
eructations, and all the distressing symptoms of indigestion. Nor is
this in the least surprising, when we consider that many people who
have brought on complaints of this kind, have been in the habit of
eating heartily of rich and highly seasoned animal food, and of
drinking from a pint to a bottle of wine, and perhaps a quantity of
malt liquor, almost every day of their lives for years. This mode is
sufficient to wear out the powers of the stomach, were it three times
as capacious as it is, and of the constitution, were it ten times as
strong.

When a torpor, or state of exhausted excitability, of the whole
system, has been induced in this manner, and symptoms of indigestion
produced, any directly debilitating cause applied to the extremities,
adding to the indirect debility, causes a total torpor, or inactivity
of the minute vessels of the part, and thus totally destroys the
balance between the propelling and resisting force; hence the vessels
will be morbidly distended with blood, a