Tes iatrikes kartos, or, A treatise de morborum capitis essentiis & pronosticis adorned with above three hundred choice and rare observations ... / by Robert Bayfield ...

CAP. XV. De Comate somnolento, seu Cataphora.

COma somnolentum, The somnolent or slee∣py Coma, is a deep and profound kinde of drowsiness, arising from hence, to wit, that the sensus communis, or common sense, is become so dull, sluggish, and stupid, that it permits not the Animal spirits to be diffused unto the external senses, neither doth it know, or is able to judge of those Objects that it receiveth from them.

Periculosius coma est quod in continuis febribus accidit. It is desperate, si à morbis calidis & siccis oriatur; for then, by this means, of necessity there must needs be an extraordinary cooling in the brain; if the malady grow to be so sad and grievous, ut sensus motus, & respiratio ipsa tolla∣tur, lethale est. The cure is doubtful if it arise

from some malignant cause, or follow upon the extream imbecillity of the Patients strength; Minùs periculosum est, quod ob consensum sit, sive ventriculi, sive intestinorum, sive uteri; modò caus∣sa tolli possit.

Dominus Moss, Paswicensis, 67. annos natus, co∣mate somnolento laborabat. He slept with his low∣er jaw-bone somewhat hanging down; and when I spake aloud to him, he would open his eyes, and answer to a question, but immediatly fall asleep again. I foretold the danger he was in, because it followed upon a malignant and quoti∣dian Fever; yet his friends being very desirous I should do something for him, I first prescribed this Clyster.

℞ Glycyrrhizae rasae & contusae, ℥ i. passula∣rum enucleatarum, ℥ i. ss. Rutae, salviae, ana P. ss. centaurei minor. cardui benedicti, ana M. ss. Flor. betonicae, rorismarini, chamomillae, ana p. i. Seminis foeniculi contusi, ʒ iii. ex quibus fiat decoctum, de quo sumatur, lb i. cui addatur butyri quantit. ovi, mellis, ℥ i. ss. salis com. ʒ ii. F. enema. Next, I sent him these Pills; ℞ pilularum cochiarum, ʒ ss. Extracti Rudii, ℈ ss. Misce, & fiant pil. nu∣mero quinque. They were dissolved in Posset-Ale, wherein Rosemary and Betony had been boiled; yet he scarce tasted their bitterness, so great was the stupidity of the sensus communis; he had four or five stools, after which he came to himself, and within a few days (the former Cly∣ster

being often repeated) he grew perfectly well, and came to my house. And so much of the Symptomes of the Common sense, next follow those of the Imagination.