7.  Prevent any unnecessary expenditure of sensorial power.  Hence in fevers with debility, a decumbent posture is preferred, with silence, little light, and such a quantity of heat as may prevent any chill sensation, or any coldness of the extremities.  The pulse of patients in fevers with debility increases in frequency above ten pulsations in a minute on their rising out of bed.  For the expenditure of sensorial power to preserve an erect posture of the body adds to the general deficiency of it, and thus affects the circulation.

8.  The longer in time and the greater in degree the quiescence or inertion of an organ has been, so that it still retains life or excitability, the less stimulus should at first be applied to it.  The quantity of stimulation is a matter of great nicety to determine, where the torpor or quiescence of the fibres has been experienced in a great degree, or for a considerable time, as in cold fits of the ague, in continued fevers with great debility, or in people famished at sea, or perishing with cold.  In the two last cases, very minute quantities of food should be first supplied, and very few additional degrees of heat.  In the two former cases, but little stimulus of wine or medicine, above what they had been lately accustomed to, should be exhibited, and this at frequent and stated intervals, so that the effect of one quantity may be observed before the exhibition of another.

If these circumstances are not attended to, as the sensorial power becomes accumulated in the quiescent fibres, an inordinate exertion takes place by the increase of stimulus acting on the accumulated quantity of sensorial power, and either the paralysis, or death of the contractile fibres ensues, from the total expenditure of the sensorial power in the affected organ, owing to this increase of exertion, like the debility after intoxication.  Or, secondly, the violent exertions above mentioned produce painful sensation, which becomes a new stimulus, and by thus producing inflammation, and increasing the activity of the fibres already too great, sooner exhausts the whole of the sensorial power in the acting organ, and mortification, that is, the death of the part, supervenes.

Hence there have been many instances of people, whose limbs have been long benumbed by exposure to cold, who have lost them by mortification on their being too hastily brought to the fire; and of others, who were nearly famished at sea, who have died soon after having taken not more than an usual meal of food.  I have heard of two well-attested instances of patients in the cold fit of ague, who have died from the exhibition of gin and vinegar, by the inflammation which ensued.  And in many fevers attended with debility, the unlimited use of wine, and the wanton application of blisters, I believe, has destroyed numbers by the debility consequent to too great stimulation, that is, by the exhaustion of the sensorial power by its inordinate exertion.