Path. [ad. Fr. éréthisme, ad. Gr. ἐρεθισμός, f. ἐρεθίζειν to irritate.
(A misspelling erythism, due to false etymology, occurs in many medical books.)]
Excitement of an organ or tissue in an unusual degree; also transf. morbid over-activity of the mental powers or passions.
1800. Med. Jrnl., IV. 370. Producing … a very useful perspiration, without augmenting the irritation or erethism in those parts.
1833. Cycl. Pract. Med., II. 104. Mercurial erethism. The word erethismus … has hitherto been almost exclusively confined to that species of erethism which sometimes arises from the use of mercury.
1836–7. Sir W. Hamilton, Metaph., xliii. (1870), II. 456. The powers are in excessive vigour,—at least in excessive erethism or excitation.
1842. Todd, Cycl. Anat., III. 56/2. His stomach was in a continued state of erethism.
1859. Bucknill, in Sat. Rev., Sept., 288. A fancy usually so cold and impassive, but now in agonising erethism.
