“Sir,—Upon reflection I deem it most advisable to trouble you with the leading particulars of my case in writing; as now, in the fifty-third year of my age, I am desirous of arriving, if possible, at a clear view of the affair, and the safest and most judicious way of treating it.
“As this complaint has attacked me at many different periods of my life, I am inclined to suppose that it has a deep root in my frame, and that it may most usefully be explained by historical deduction.
“Its first appearance was in the twenty-eighth year of my age; the fits continued to visit me for some weeks and then disappeared. They did not return till 1800, after an interval of seventeen years.
“In 1792 I had an attack of vertigo, accompanied with extreme costiveness, the only time at which I have experienced that symptom in an excessive degree.
“In 1795 I first became subject to fits of sleepiness in an afternoon, which have never since left me, and occasionally seize me even in company.
“In 1800 and 1803 my old disorder revisited me; the
attacks were preceded by a minute’s notice, and each fit (of perfect
insen-
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“It should be observed, that when first attacked in 1783, it was difficult to have been of more temperate habits than I was, seldom tasting wine or spirituous liquors. Since that time I have never been intemperate; but for the last twenty years have indulged in the moderate regular use of both, not more than three or four glasses of wine in a day.
“All these three attacks were in the midst of a hot summer; in every instance each single fit seemed to find me and leave me in perfect health. . . . The approach of the fit is not painful, but is rather entitled to the name of pleasure, a gentle fading away of the senses; nor is the recovery painful, unless I am teazed in it by persons about me. . . . I am, etc.,
