ABSTRACT
§ I. I Never faw any Person labour under severe, obstinate, strong Nervous Complaints, but I always found at laft, the Stomach, Guts, Liver, Spleen, Mesentery, or some of the great and necessary Organs or Glands of the lower Belly were obstructed, knotted, schirrous, or spoil'd, and perhaps all these together; and it may be very justly affirmed, that no habitual and grievous, or great Nervous Disorders, ever happened to any one who laboured not under some real Glandular Distemper, either fcrophulous or fcorbutical, original or acquired. So that in general, great Nervous Disorders may justly and properly be termed Glandular. The Stomach is often the first and principal Organ (or at least by Consent and Consequence) in the Fault: Either it is too thin and weak by Nature, or the inner villous Membrane is worn off by Luxury, so that it cannot contract close enough to embrace the Food; or it is become too soft, flabby, and relaxed, so that it cannot, with sufficient Spring, squeeze its Contents; or its Glands are growing schirrous bard, and knotted, so that its Action is weak and languid, and interrupted, or laftly, there may actually be a discoverable Impostbume, Schirrosity, or Cancer already extant in it. And hence the Necessity of frequent, but gentle Vomits (at least in all these Cases but the last) to empty these weak Glands, when full of indigefted Flegm, Wind, or Choler, in such Nervous Cases, and a thin, light, cool, and balmy Diet, proportioned to the Weakness and Infirmities of the Stomach and Solids (to give it the least Labour, and most Reft possible, as we cure broken Bones, by using them little) as well as to cut off the Sources of more Infection in them all, without Exception.
