had epileptic fits during her pregnancy. These all died. With others, she was free from fits. By her falls her head was so much bruised, that still, at the distance of twenty years, she suffers severe pains at times, and is so deaf, that few of her neighbours can make her hear; yet her articulation is perfect. The circumstance to which I wish to direct the attention of the reader is the fact, that she hears her own voice as distinctly as ever (though nearly deaf to all external sounds), and this suffices to regulate her articulation.

The effect on the condition of horses, by exciting healthy action in the minute arteries of the surface of the body, is well known to most people.

The late Mr. Grosvenor, of Oxford, and my friend, Mr. Carpue, extended this practice most successfully to the torpid and stiffened limbs of their patients. My own conviction of the utility of thus exciting local arterial action was confirmed by the following experiment, which I published in the year 1793 :

Having divided the crural nerve of a frog,

I left it for weeks. its muscles to contract but zinc and silver, applied to the cut end of the nerve. The contractions were very feeble; but after brushing the skin over the muscles, they contracted as vigorously as those of the leg whose nerve had not been divided.

No stimuli then excited

It is, therefore, through the media of branches of the fifth pair of nerves, by retransmission, that I hope so to invigorate minute arterial action in the ears of Margaret Sullivan as to produce a healthy secretion of aqueous fluid (see the Appendix) in the labyrinth, and the repair of such parts as may have been but slightly disorganised by disease.

The severest long-continued case of ticdoloureux, in all the branches of the fifth pair of nerves, that I have seen, was cured by washing the head frequently with cold water. Another case of severe neuralgia in the frontal branch of the fifth pair of nerves was suspended for more than a month by application of Dr. Granville's counter-irritant, whenever the returning pain was anticipated. On the death of the patient, a sensible man, of about

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forty years of age, a malignant tumour was found in the small intestines.*

I cite these cases to prove the reciprocal influence which the sentient extremities of branches of the fifth pair of nerves, and deeply-seated and often remote parts, have on each other.

In cases of apoplexy, epilepsy, hysteria, and convulsions, from whatever cause, I have invariably found the safest and most effective assistance from a small but continued stream of cold water, poured on the head.

Having found the general health of the boy Trimbee, of whose case some details are given in pages 29 and 30, perfectly restored, and that his ears are more sensible to sounds, and having reason to think that much of this has been effected by the continued application of salt and water to his head and neck, and by keeping up a secretion from the lining of the passage to the ear, I have urged the

* The inferior maxillary nerve, or third branch of the fifth pair of nerves, before leaving the cranium, is joined, as the first and second divisions are, by a filiment from the sympathetic nerve.

employment of similar means with this poor girl.

I was once called to a young man in a state of stupor, who was supposed to be dying from pressure on the brain. To relieve him from such long-accumulated secretions as might obscure the disease, a stream of the coldest water was poured over the lower part of his person, so that all accessible branches of the sympathetic nerve might be thus excited by its influence, to rouse into action the several cavities to which they are distributed. This succeeded so much beyond my expectation, that three hours afterwards I found him sitting upright, and answering promptly and rationally all the inquiries I had occasion to address to him.

If such copious affusions of cold water are thus influential in resuscitating the torpid energies of our frame in a state of disease, it is obvious that they cannot but be valuable aids, when discreetly applied, to preserve its healthy condition.

As a proof of the extent of the influence of the pointed steel ear-picker, moved

with as much pressure as can without discomfort be borne over the whole surface of the passage to the ear, I may observe, that I have again and again perceived a slight metallic taste, re-excited as often as the earpicker was so applied to the inner surface of the ear. The minute arteries are thus brought into action by their exciting nerves.

Metallic taste may be more strongly excited by rubbing the internal surface of the nares and corners of the mouth with the polished surface of the steel blades of the tweezers.

Does not this afford an additional proof that the third branch of the fifth pair of nerves is the nerve of taste?

The sensation of the metallic taste may be still more distinctly excited by cutting the hairs within the nares and on the corners of

*The late Sir Charles Bell has somewhere observed, that the taste of steel is excited by touching some of the papillæ of the tongue with the point of a needle. If attention be given to the sensation excited while cutting the hairs within the nostrils, not only will a metallic taste, but a strong metallic odour, be perceived.