mucilaginous fluid of the
anasarca, and with air in Emphysema. Sometimes a gradual absorption of the
accumulated fluid takes place, and the thinner parts being taken up, there
remains a more viscid fluid, or almost a solid in the part, as in some
swelled legs, which can not easily be indented by the pressure of the
finger, and are called scorbutic. Sometimes the paralysis of the absorbents
is completely removed, and the whole is again taken up into the
circulation.

The Hydrocele is known by a tumor of the scrotum, which is without pain,
gradually produced, with fluctuation, and a degree of pellucidity, when a
candle is held behind it; it is the most simple incysted dropsy, as it is
not in general complicated with other diseases, as ascites with schirrous
liver, and hydrocephalus internus, with general debility. The cure of this
disease is effected by different ways; it consists in discharging the water
by an external aperture; and by so far inflaming the cyst and testicle,
that they afterwards grow together, and thus prevent in future any
secretion or effusion of mucus; the disease is thus cured, not by the
revivescence of the absorbent power of the lymphatics, but by the
prevention of secretion by the adhesion of the vagina to the testis. This I
believe is performed with less pain, and is more certainly manageable by
tapping, or discharging the fluid by means of a trocar, and after the
evacuation of it to fill the cyst with a mixture of wine and water for a
few minutes till the necessary degree of stimulus is produced, and then to
withdraw it; as recommended by Mr. Earle. See also Medical Commentaries by
Dr. Duncan, for 1793.

12. _Hydrocephalus internus_, or dropsy of the ventricles of the brain, is
fatal to many children, and some adults. When this disease is less in
quantity, it probably produces a fever, termed a nervous fever, and which
is sometimes called a worm fever, according to the opinion of Dr.
Gilchrist, in the Scots Medical essays. This fever is attended with great
inirritability, as appears from the dilated pupils of the eyes, in which it
corresponds with the dropsy of the brain. And the latter disease has its
paroxysms of quick pulse, and in that respect corresponds with other fevers
with inirritability.

The hydrocephalus internus is distinguished from apoplexy by its being
attended with fever, and from nervous fever by the paroxysms being very
irregular, with perfect intermissions many times in a d