CHAP. XXXVI.
EPHIALTES, * 1.1 is a disease whereas one thinketh himself (in the night) to be op∣pressed with a great weight, believing that something cometh upon him, and thinketh that he is strangled.
It is often times caused of excesse of drink∣ing, * 1.2 and sometimes continual rawness of the stomack, from whence doth ascend vapours, gross and cold, filling the ventricles of the brain, and letting the faculties of the brain to be dispersed by the sinewes.
They that have this disease can scarce move, * 1.3 being astonied, and as it were held by some∣thing that doth violently invade them; the voyce is suppressed, some do believe (though vainly) that they hear the thing that doth op∣press them; now at the last with much trouble, the vapours being attenuate, and driven away, and the passage of the spirits being opened, the sick is by and by raysed to his perfect sences.
If this disease continue, * 1.4 it induceth a worse to follow, as Apoplexia, Epilepsia, or the like: Therefore cure it at first if possible, use a thinne diet, and nothing that ingenders windiness, no wine, * 1.5 except diluted with water, fleep not in the day: if a full body, cut the Cephalica vein, and purge: 15. black Piony seeds is said to