common to them
both.

Perhaps if the mesenteric glands were nicely inspected in the dissections
of these patients; and if the thoracic duct, and the larger branches of the
lacteals, and if the lymphatics, which arise from the bladder, were well
examined by injection, or by the knife, the cause of diabetes might be more
certainly understood.

The opium alone, and the opium with the rosin, seem much to have served
this patient, and might probably have effected a cure, if the disease had
been slighter, or the medicine had been exhibited, before it had been
confirmed by habit during the seven months it had continued. The increase
of the quantity of water on beginning the large doses of rosin was probably
owing to his omitting the morning doses of opium.

V. _The Phaenomena of Dropsies explained._

I. Some inebriates have their paroxysms of inebriety terminated by much
pale urine, or profuse sweats, or vomiting, or stools; others have their
paroxysms terminated by stupor, or sleep, without the above evacuations.

The former kind of these inebriates have been observed to be more liable to
diabetes and dropsy; and the latter to gout, gravel, and leprosy. Evoe!
attend ye bacchanalians! start at this dark train of evils, and, amid your
immodest jests, and idiot laughter, recollect,

Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.

In those who are subject to diabetes and dropsy, the absorbent vessels are
naturally more irritable than in the latter; and by being frequently
disturbed or inverted by violent stimulus, and by their too great sympathy
with each other, they become at length either entirely paralytic, or are
only susceptible of motion from the stimulus of very acrid materials; as
every part of the body, after having been used to great irritations,
becomes less affected by smaller ones. Thus we cannot distinguish objects
in the night, for some time after we come out of a strong light, though the
iris is presently dilated; and the air of a summer evening appears cold,
after we have been exposed to the heat of the day.

There are no cells in the body, where dropsy may not be produced, if the
lymphatics cease to absorb that mucilaginous fluid, which is perpetually
deposited in them, for the purpose of lubricating their surfaces.

If the lymphatic branch, which opens into the cellular membrane, either
does its office imperfectly, or not at all; these cells become replete with
a mucilaginous fluid, which, after it has stag