Delirium

[Lat., from deliro, I rave, or am furious; Fr. délire.] Any burst of tumultuous excitement, pa ion, or enthusiasm; as, ti delirium of a national panic, a delirium of pleasure, . ( Med .) A perturbed and disordered state of the brain, proceeding either from an exce of blood, or a great lo of vital power or augmentation of nervous irritability. D. , though not a symptom, is frequently a concomitant or result of fevers, inflan mations of the substance or membrane of the brain, of reaction after long exposure to cold or abstinence from food, and is oftența consequence of both mineral and vegetable poisons. D. is easily distinguished from mania, or madne , by the absence of all congruity of thought, the impo ibility of fixing the patient's attention to one subject for even the shortest space of time, and by the total absence of that circumventing cunning so characteristic of madne ; or by the restle mutterings, incoherent and disjointed talk, in which private matters, family secrets, and long past events are all mingled in a confused babble. D. may be either violent and frantic ( D. feroz ), as in acute inflammation of the membranes of the brain; or low and muttering ( typhomania ), as in low fever. It supervenes on fever during any part of its course. It occurs in the hot state of some intermit tents, but warely makes its appearance in typhoid or continued fever until the disease has reached its height. It sometimes occurs suddenly, without any previous indication; but more frequently it is preceded by headache, throbbing of the temples, a flushed and oppre ed countenance, . The patient is at first delirious during the short and imperfect periods of sleep, or immediately after he is roused, becoming, when fully awakened, more clear, and comparatively collected. By degrees this lucid interval becomes le perceptible; the individual becomes more and more incapable of reflection and mental exertion, and gradually loses the power of recognizing the persons and objects which surround him. When D. is about to terminate fatally, sensibility becomes more and more impaired, until all conscious feeling seems to be lost. Inarticulate moaning succeeds to delirious incoherence; the patient loses in a great measure sight and hearing; the mouth and tongue are dry, yet the patient no longer complains of thirst; the pupils become scarcely contractile; black spots, like flies, appear before the patient's eyes, and the evacuations escape without consciousne . As D. is rather a symptom of a disease than a disease itself, its treatment nece arily forms a part of that of the disease on which it supervenes.