[25] In studious men, who lead a sedentary life, whilst they grow pale with poring over books, an apoplexy often arises from such a cause; but it comes on slowly and gradually. For the first symptom is languor, and a love of indolence; then the understanding begins to grow dull, the memory to flag; they become sleepy, stupid, and often continue a long time in that state before their death. I have seen, and not without the greatest compassion, men of the most profound learning, and who had deserv’d highly of the republick of letters, who, as it were, surviv’d themselves above a twelvemonth in a state of total oblivion, and at last died of apoplexy. VAN SWIETEN, tom. III. p. 263. [26] ADAM _vitæ medicorum_, p. 372. [27] We meet in the medicinal diary with an account, very well worth reading, of a severe colick, attended with other bad symptoms, and occasion’d by intense study and nocturnal lucubrations. Tom. I. p. 352. [28] VAN SWIETEN, tom. III. p. 87. ex COLUMBO. [29] Experience shews us that men of learning, though naturally of a chearful disposition, become at last fix’d, silent, pale, emaciated, and strangely troubled with the hypochondriac disorder, which generally tyrannizes over sedentary people. _Ant._ FELICI _dissertazioni epistolari_, p. 203. [30] BOERHAAV. _ad institut._ §. 896, tom. VII. p. 275. [31] LANCISUS _de mortu subit._ l. 1. c. 22. [32] MARKII _Oratio funebris in obitum_ TRIGLANDII. Leyden, 1705. [33] The famous ROUSSEAU; but he has since quitted the British asylum, and returned to France. [34] JOH. ALPH. ROSSET, theologiæ professor, & academiæ, hoc tempore, rector. [35] The disorders of orators and singers are the same; but the bodies of these being open’d, have often shewn inflammations, suppurations, ulcers in the lungs; nay, the illustrious MORGAGNI saw a young man that had an excellent voice, whose wind-pipe and throat being affected, could swallow nothing, and, whilst he attempted to suck down the yolk of an egg, was suffocated and died. _De sedib. & caus._ tom. 1. p. 228. [36] It often proves hurtful to men of learning themselves, when in an advanc’d age they pursue a new study; for this gives rise to a new order of ideas, which receives no assistance from all the traces before left upon the brain: new fibres must receive new motions, a laborious work to the organ already debilitated, and which often throws men of first-rate capacities into lingering disorders. [37] SUETONIUS _in vita_ OCT. AUG. _cap._ 82. [38] VALERIUS MAXIMUS, lib. 3. c. 6. p. 140. [39] _De education. pueror._ cap. 12. [40] _De motu opt. corpor. medicin._ § 9.