glandular action.

Is the difficulty of breathing, arising from anasarca of the lungs,
relieved by sweats from the head and neck; whilst that difficulty of
breathing, which arises from a dropsy of the thorax, or pericardium, is
never attended with these sweats of the head? and thence can these diseases
be distinguished from each other? Do the periodic returns of nocturnal
asthma rise from a temporary dropsy of the lungs, collected during their
more torpid state in sound deep, and then re-absorbed by the vehement
efforts of the disordered organs of respiration, and carried off by the
copious sweats about the head and neck?

More extensive and accurate dissections of the lymphatic system are wanting
to enable us to unravel these knots of science.

VII. _Translations of Matter, of Chyle, of Milk, of Urine. Operation of
purging Drugs applied externally._

1. The translations of matter from one part of the body to another, can
only receive an explanation from the doctrine of the occasional retrograde
motions of some branches of the lymphatic system: for how can matter,
absorbed and mixed with the whole mass of blood, be so hastily collected
again in any one part? and is it not an immutable law, in animal bodies,
that each gland can secrete no other, but its own proper fluid? which is,
in part, fabricated in the very gland by an animal process, which it there
undergoes: of these purulent translations innumerable and very remarkable
instances are recorded.

2. The chyle, which is seen among the materials thrown up by violent
vomiting, or in purging stools, can only come thither by its having been
poured into the bowels by the inverted motions of the lacteals: for our
aliment is not converted into chyle in the stomach or intestines by a
chemical process, but is made in the very mouths of the lacteals; or in the
mesenteric glands; in the same manner as other secreted fluids are made by
an animal process in their adapted glands.

Here a curious phaenomenon in the exhibition of mercury is worth
explaining:--If a moderate dose of calomel, as six or ten grains, be
swallowed, and within one or two days a cathartic is given, a salivation is
prevented: but after three or four days, a salivation having come on,
repeated purges every day, for a week or two, are required to eliminate the
mercury from the constitution. For this acrid metallic preparation, being
absorbed by the mouth of the lacteals, continues, for a time arrested by