.
Mr. P. about 50 years of age, had for many weeks been afflicted with
anasarca of his legs and thighs, attended with difficulty of breathing; and
had repeatedly been relieved by squill, other bitters, and
chalybeates.--One night the difficulty of breathing became so great, that
it was thought he must have expired; but so copious a sweat came out of his
head and neck, that in a few hours some pints, by estimation, were wiped
off from those parts, and his breath was for a time relieved. This dyspnoea
and these sweats recurred at intervals, and after some weeks he ceased to
exist. The skin of his head and neck felt cold to the hand, and appeared
pale at the time these sweats flowed so abundantly; which is a proof, that
they were produced by an inverted motion of the absorbents of those parts:
for sweats, which are the consequence of an increased action of the
sanguiferous system, are always attended with a warmth of the skin, greater
than is natural, and a more florid colour; as the sweats from exercise, or
those that succeed the cold fits of agues. Can any one explain how these
partial sweats should relieve the difficulty of breathing in anasarca, but
by supposing that the pulmonary branch of absorbents drank up the fluid in
the cavity of the thorax, or in the cells of the lungs, and threw it on the
skin, by the retrograde motions of the cutaneous branch? for, if we could
suppose, that the increased action of the cutaneous glands or capillaries
poured upon the skin this fluid, previously absorbed from the lungs; why is
not the whole surface of the body covered with sweat? why is not the skin
warm? Add to this, that the sweats above mentioned were clammy or
glutinous, which the condensed perspirable matter is not; whence it would
seem to have been a different fluid from that of common perspiration.

Dr. Dobson, of Liverpool, has given a very ingenious explanation of the
acid sweats, which he observed in a diabetic patient--he thinks part of the
chyle is secreted by the skin, and afterwards undergoes an acetous
fermentation.--Can the chyle get thither, but by an inverted motion of the
cutaneous lymphatics? in the same manner as it is carried to the bladder,
by the inverted motions of the urinary lymphatics. Medic. Observat. and
Enq. London, vol. v.

Are not the cold sweats in some fainting fits, and in dying people, owing
to an inverted motion of the cutaneous lymphatics? for in these there can
be no increased arterial or