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Mr Young wrote you from this acquainting
you that my Son had attended the Infirmary ¹ last Session so that I
hope thro' your good Offices he may depend on being admitted One
of the Dressers ² this Session which I beg you wou'd take the trouble to
inform me of that he may be timeously in town.

At the same time may I presume from the benevolence of your
Disposition & the confidence I have in the superiority of your Un¬
derstanding in Medical matters to ask your advice with regard to
myself -- For some time bygone I have had without any hurt or other
visible Cause a small Quantity of blood mixd with my spittle accompai¬
ned with a cough & a thick catarrhous kind of Spitting -- For these
ten days past this complaint has increased considerably so as fre¬
quently to spit up pure unmixd florid blood attended with a pulse rather
quicker than usual - Sometimes it ceases - at intervals returns - &
last night returnd to a great degree the moment I laid down my
head on the pillow -- For some considerable time before being seizd
with this Spitting of blood I had been troubld with what I lookd on
to be a pretty singular phænomenon viz that upon going to bed
sometimes when quite awake, at other times when asleep or falling
asleep I was often instantaneously seizd with a kind of Spasm or
convulsion about my throat - I know not well what to call it -
which threw me involuntarly off the pillow to an erect posture accom¬
panied with a total cessation of breathing - This if continued for any
time behoovd infallibly to put an end to life, but in a short space it
goes off & the breathing returning was immediately as well as ever - This
disagreable & alarming Symptom which has been of long continuance
has ceasd since the spitting of blood has come upon me tho' whether
the One stands any way connected with the other I have not

To
Doctor William Cullen
Physician at
Edinburgh

Mr Fleming Kilmacolm
Octr 1777