o RETROGRADE Sect. XXIX. 5. 2. 



farca of his legs, thighs, and hands, and confiderable tumor-iy 

 with evident fluctuation of his abdomen ; his pulfe was eq 

 his urine in fmall quantity, of deep colour, and turbid. Th 

 fuellings had been twice confiderably abated by draftic cathar- 

 tics. He took thiee ounces of a decoction of foxglove (ma 

 by boiling one ounce of the freih leaves in a pint of water) every 

 three hours, for two whole days ; it then began to vomit and 

 purge him violently, and promoted a great flow of urine ; he 

 was by thefe evacuations completely emptied in twelve hours. 

 After two or three month:, all thefe fymptoms returned, and 

 were again relieved by the ufe of the foxglove ; and thus in the 

 fpace of about three years he was about ten times evacuated, 

 and continued all that time his ufual potations : excepting at 

 firft, the medicine operated only by urine, and did not appear 

 confiderably to weaken him. — The lad time he took it, it had 

 iio effect ; and a few weeks afterwards he vomited a great quail* 

 tity of blood, and expired, 



QJJERIES. 



1. As the firft: fix of thefe patients had a due difchargc of 

 urine, and of the natural colour, was not the feat of the difeafe 

 confined to fome part of the thorax, and the fwelling of the legs 

 rather a fymptom of the obstructed circulation of the blood, 

 than of a paralyfis of the cellular lymphatics of thofe parts ? 



2. When the original difeafe is a general anafarca, do not the 

 cutaneous lymphatic^ always become paralytic at the fame time 

 with the cellular ones, by their greater fympathy with each oth- 

 er ? and hence the paucity of urine, and the great thirif, diftin- 

 guifh this kind of dropfy ? 



3. In the anafarca of the lungs, when the difeafe is not very 

 great, though the patients have confiderable difficulty of breath- 

 ing at their firft lying down, yet after a minute or two their 

 breath becomes cafy again -, and the fame occurs at their firfl 

 rifing. Is not this owing to the time neceflary for the fluid in 

 the cells of the lungs to change its place, fo as the leaft; to incom- 

 mode refpiration in the new attitude ? 



4. In the dropfy of the pericardium does not the patient bear 

 the horizontal 01 pw npendicular attitude with equal cafe ? Does 

 this circumftance diftmguiih the dropfy of the pericardium from 



t of the lungs and of the thorax ? 



5. Do the univerfal fweats diftinguim the dropfy of the peri- 

 cardium, or of the thorax ? and thofe, which cover the upp 

 parts of the body only, the anafarca of the lungs ? 



6. When in the dropfy of the thorax, the patient endeavours 



tQ 



