BLOODY SWEAT. 357 



power and influence tbat are in their hands on the side of the inferior 

 type ; they are both, so far as they can do it, preventing the develop- 

 ment of the better type. They are both manufacturing virtues which 

 are the mere imitations of virtues, sham products that, as time will tell 

 them, will neither wash nor wear. Many men before them have tried 

 a fall with Nature and her conditions, and have scarcely had the best 

 of it. Nature in her irony often allows us a ten minutes of seeming 

 success when we go against her methods, and I doubt not that both 

 Sir W, Lawson and Mr. Mundella will have a ten minutes of their 

 own ; but then comes the after-time in which the bent bow flies back, 

 I hope as it does so it may not hit any of my friends too violently in 

 the face who have been so strenuously bending it down. 



-♦♦*- 



BLOODY SWEAT. 



By J. H. POOLEY, M.D., 



PROFESSOR OF SURGERY IN THE TOLEDO MEDICAL COLLEGE, TOLEDO, OHIO. 



THIS rare affection, which has always excited in a high degree the 

 interest and attention of medical observers, consists essentially 

 of a hsemorrhage from the unbroken surface of the skin. But, inas- 

 much as it takes place fi'om the net- work of small vessels which sur- 

 round the sweat-glands, and makes it appearance through the opening 

 of the sweat-ducts, it is not inappropriately, after all, named " bloody 

 sweat." 



The discharge is generally intermittent, or at least remittent, and 

 paroxysmal in its nature, the intervals varying from a few hours to 

 months. Sometimes it is pure blood which coagulates in crusts or 

 gouts upon the surface, sometimes it is so intermixed with serum or 

 the perspiratory fluid as to be merely a more or less deeply colored 

 bloody liquid. 



Its extent varies extremely : it may make its appearance over the 

 whole or nearly the whole of the surface of the body, but more com- 

 monly it is confined to some selected regions, generally those in which 

 the skin is thin and delicate. It most frequently appears as a more or 

 less copious and continued oozing from the surface, which, when wiped 

 away, rapidly or slowly reappears from numerous minute or indistin- 

 guishable points, but it has been seen to spring up in a distinct jet 

 from the surface. 



It is often associated with eruptions upon the skin, but quite as 

 often there is nothing of the kind. Every age and both sexes have 

 furnished examples of it, though it is most common in females, and es- 

 pecially in nervous and hysterical women. Bloody sweat may be pro- 



