II. Cold applied suddenly to the body, after it has been exposed to intense heat. Of this Dr. Girdlestone mentions many instances, in his Treatise upon Spasmodic Affections in India. It was most commonly induced by sleeping upon the ground, after a warm day. Such is the dampness and unwholesome nature of the ground, in some parts of that country, that "fowls (the doctor says) put into coops at night, in the sickly season of the year, and on the same soil that the men slept, were always found dead the next morning, if the coop was not placed at a certain height above the surface of the earth[48]." It was brought on by sleeping on a damp pavement in a servant girl of Mr. Alexander Todd of Philadelphia, in the evening of a day in which the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer stood at 90°. Dr. Chalmers relates an instance of its having been induced by a person's sleeping without a nightcap, after shaving his head. The late Dr. Bartram informed me, that he had known a draught of cold water produce it in a man who was in a preternaturally heated state. The cold air more certainly brings on this disease, if it be applied to the body in the form of a current. The stiff neck which is sometimes felt after exposure to a stream of cool air from an open window, is a tendency to a locked jaw, or a feeble and partial tetanus. [48] Page 55. III. Worms and certain acrid matters in the alimentary canal. Morgagni relates an instance of the former, and I shall hereafter mention instances of the latter in new-born infants. IV. Certain poisonous vegetables. There are several cases upon record of its being induced by the hemlock dropwort, and the datura stramonium, or Jamestown weed of our country. V. It is sometimes a symptom of the bilious remitting and intermitting fever. It is said to occur more frequently in those states of fever in the island of Malta, than in any other part of the world. VI. It is likewise a symptom of that malignant state of fever which is brought on by the bite of a rabid animal, also of hysteria and gout. VII. The grating noise produced by cutting with a knife upon a pewter plate excited it in a servant, while he was waiting upon his master's table in London. It proved fatal in three days. VIII. The sight of food, after long fasting. IX. Drunkenness. X. Certain emotions and passions of the mind. Terror brought it on a brewer in this city. He had been previously debilitated by great labour, in warm weather. I have heard of its having been induced in a man by agitation of mind, occasioned by seeing a girl tread upon a nail. Fear excited it in a soldier who kneeled down to be shot. Upon being pardoned he was unable to rise, from a sudden attack of tetanus. Grief produced it in a case mentioned by Dr. Willan. XI. Parturition. All these remote and exciting causes act with more or less certainty and force, in proportion to the greater or less degrees of fatigue which have preceded them.