From the circumstances above enumerated of the delicate texture, constant motion, and numerous blood-vessels of the lungs, it is natural to imagine, that a breach of this nature in their substance will be still more difficult to heal than a wound from an external cause. So unquestionably it is; yet there are many instances of even this kind of breach being repaired; the matter expectorated diminishing in quantity every day, and the ulcer gradually healing; not, surely, by the power of medicine, but by the constant disposition and tendency which exists in nature, by inscrutable means of her own, to restore health to the human body. It may be proper to observe, that those persons whose formation of body renders them most liable to a spitting of blood, have also a greater predisposition than others to tubercles in the lungs. The disease, called the spasmodic asthma, has been reckoned among the causes of the pulmonary consumption. It would require a much greater degree of confidence in a man’s own judgment, than I have in mine, to assert, that this complaint has no tendency to produce tubercles in the lungs; but I may say, with truth, that I have often known the spasmodic asthma, in the most violent degree, attended with the most alarming symptoms, continue to harass the patients for a long period of time, and at length suddenly disappear, without ever returning; the persons who have been thus afflicted, enjoying perfect health for many years after. It is not probable that tubercles were formed in any of these cases; and it is certain they were not in some, whose bodies were opened after their deaths, which happened from other distempers, the asthma having disappeared several years before. Certain eruptions of the skin, attended with fever, particularly the small-pox, and still oftener the measles, leave after them a foundation for the pulmonary consumption. From whichever of the causes above enumerated this disease takes its origin, when once an ulcer, attended with a hectic fever, is formed in the lungs, the case is, in the highest degree, dangerous. When it ends fatally, the symptoms are, a quick pulse, and a sensation of cold, while the patient’s skin, to the feeling of every other person, is hot; irregular shiverings, a severe cough, expectoration of matter streaked with blood, morning sweats, a circumscribed spot of a crimson colour on the cheeks, heat of the palms of the hands, excessive emaciation, crooking of the nails, swelling of the legs, giddiness, delirium, soon followed by death. These symptoms do not appear in every case. Although the emaciation is greater in this disease than in any other, yet the appetite frequently remains strong and unimpaired to the last; and although delirium sometimes comes before death, yet in many cases the senses seem perfect and intire; except in one particular, that in spite of all the foregoing symptoms, the patient often entertains the fullest hopes of recovery to the last moment.