history of our patient, we are prepared to investigate the symptoms under which he at present labours, and to inquire into the circumstances of their accession, progress, order of succession, intensity, and duration. If this investigation be conducted with skill, we shall be enabled to form some opinion respecting the origin of the sufferings, and, perhaps, to distinguish the invasion of a spontaneous disease from the effects of acute poisoning: upon this latter point, however, we shall require the aid of much collateral information,[1] as whether the patient has ever suffered in a similar manner at any previous period, or whether any part of his family or friends have experienced a similar attack at the present time? If the reply to this latter query be in the affirmative, we may look for a common cause of the complaint, and be led to suspect that it may arise from the ingestion of some acrid matter. We should therefore proceed to discover the nature of the meals last taken as to quantity and quality; the practitioner should, at the same time, pay particular attention to the state of the different persons affected, and to the existence or absence of vomitings and stools. The following case, reported by Morgagni, and quoted by Orfila & Foderé, may be introduced as affording good illustrations of those points of inquiry, whose importance we are anxious to enforce. "In the month of May, 1711, four persons, that is to say, a priest, two women, one of which was his sister-in-law, and another person, all in good health, and on a journey, stopped at an inn to dine. Setting out on their road after dinner, the priest in a short time felt himself so ill in his
- ↑ See vol. 2. page 155 of the present work, where this subject is very fully considered.
