Note 51 — ADDENDA.

This anxiety about the præcordia may be regarded as a pathognomonic symptom of the plague in its most acute type. It is so excessive that the patients are at a loss for words capable of expressing it. It does not consist in a violent pain, but in a certain oppressive, suffocating, and altogether intolerable sensation at the pit of the stomach. In this state, they make known their anguish and show the danger they are in by sighs, tears, and lamentations, writhing their bodies in the most violent manner, and, especially when their delirium comes on, falling down upon the ground or floor, and crawling about as long as any muscular power remains. Others who are affected with extreme debility from the first, although they feel the same anguish, are not capable of tossing and writhing themselves about so much.