342: DISEASES Class II. i, 6. 



noxious property, Is produced ; which acts like contagion on the 

 conftitution inducing fever-fits, called hectic fever, which termin- 

 ate with f^ats or diarrhoea ; whereas the matter in the clofed 

 abfcefs is either not abforbed, or does not fo affect the circula- 

 tion as to produce diurnal or hectic fever-fits ; but the hamulus 

 of the abfcefs excites fo much fenfation as to induce perpetual- 

 pyrexia, or inflammatory fever, without fuch marked remiffions. 

 Neverthelefs there fometimes is no fever produced, when the 

 matter is- lodged in a part of little fenfibility, as in the liver ; yet 

 a white pus-like fediment in thofe cafes exifts I believe general- 

 ly in the urine, with occafional wandering pains about the region 

 of the liver or chef!. 



3. Vomica. An abfcefs in the lungs is fometimes produced 

 after peripneumony, the cough and fhortnefs of breath continue 

 in lels degree, with difficulty in lying on the well fide, and with 

 fen fitive irritated fever, as explained in the preceding article. 



The occafional increafe of fever, with hard pulfe and fizy 

 blood, in thefe' patients, is probably owing to the inflammation' 

 of the walls of the vomica \ as it is attended with difficulty of 

 breathing, and requires venefection. Mr. B ; — — *■, a child about 

 feven years old, lived about feven weeks in this fituation, with a 

 pulfe from 150 to 170 in a minute, without fweats, or diarrhoea, 

 or fediment in his water, except mucus occafionally ; and took 

 fufficient nourifhment during the whole time. The blood ta- 

 ken was always covered with a ftrong. cupped llze, and on his 

 death three or four pints of matter were found in one fide of the 

 cheit ; which had probably, but lately, been effufed from a vom- 

 ica. This child was frequently induced to fwing, both in a re- 

 ciprocatingand in a rotatory fwing, without any apparent abforp- 

 tion of matter ; in both thefe fwings he exprelfed pleafure, and 

 did not appear to be vertiginous. 



M. M. Repeated emetics. Digitalis ? Perfeverance in ro- 

 tatory fwineinff. SeeClafs II. 1. 6. 7. 



Mr. I. had laboured fome months under a vomica after a pe~ 

 ripneumony, he was at length taken with a catarrh, which was in 

 fome degree endemic in March 1795, which occafioned him to 

 fneeze much, during which a copious hemorrhage from the lungs 

 occurred, and he fpit up at the fame time half a pint of very fe- 

 tid matter, and recovered. Hence errhines may be occafionally 

 ufed with advantage. 



4. 'Empyema. When the matter from an abfcefs in the lungs 

 finds its way into the cavity of the cheft, it is' called an empye- 

 ma. A fervant man, after a violent peripneumony, was feized 

 with fymptoms of empyema, and it was determined, after fome 

 rime, to perform the operation j this was explained to him, and- 



the: 



