s,
unconnected with dropsy.

IX. That it has a power over the motion of the heart, to a degree yet
unobserved in any other medicine, and that this power may be converted
to salutary ends.

PRACTICAL REMARKS ON DROPSY, AND SOME OTHER DISEASES.

The following remarks consist partly of matter of fact, and partly of
opinion. The former will be permanent; the latter must vary with the
detection of error, or the improvement of knowledge. I hazard them
with diffidence, and hope they will be examined with candour; not by a
contrast with other opinions, but by an attentive comparison with the
phoenomena of disease.

ANASARCA.

Sec. 1. The anasarca is generally curable when seated in the
sub-cutaneous cellular membrane, or in the substance of the lungs.

Sec. 2. When the abdominal viscera in general are greatly enlarged, which
they sometimes are, without effused fluid in the cavity of the
abdomen; the disease is incurable. After death, the more solid viscera
are found very large and pale. If the cavity contains water, that
water may be removed by diuretics.

Sec. 3. In swollen legs and thighs, where the resistance to pressure is
considerable, the tendency to transparency in the skin not obvious,
and where the alteration of posture occasions but little alteration in
the state of distension, the cure cannot be effected by diuretics.

Is this difficulty of cure occasioned by spissitude in the effused
fluids, by want of proper communication from cell to cell, or is the
disease rather caused by a morbid growth of the solids, than by an
accumulation of fluid?

Is not this disease in the limbs similar to that of the viscera (Sec. 2)?

Sec. 4. Anasarcous swellings often take place in palsied limbs, in arms
as well as legs; so that the swelling does not depend merely upon
position.

Sec. 5. Is there not cause to suspect that many dropsies originate from
paralytic affections of the lymphatic absorbents? And if so, is it not
probable that the Digitalis, which is so effectual in removing dropsy,
may also be used advantageously in some kinds of palsy?

ASCITES.

Sec. 6. If existing alone, (_i. e._) without accompanying anasarca, is in
children curable; in adults generally incurable by medicines. Tapping
may be used here with better chance for success than in more
complicated dropsies. Sometimes cured by vomiting.

AS