22S CONSUMPTION'. 



sumption; it has for ao'es been an excellent 

 mask of mystery for the doubts of the fa- 

 culty, and no bad explanatory substitute 

 for the meaning of the vulgar, in all those 

 internal decays of the human species, where 

 the chasm in the countenance of the doctor, 

 and the ambiguous shake of the head, (in- 

 cluding the alternate construction of hope 

 and fear), is inter.ded to convince the an- 

 xious attendant that symptoms are obscured 

 by circu77istanccs, and certainty not to be as- 

 dertained. 



A consumption may proceed from a non- 

 performance of the function to which many 

 parts of the animal structure may be des- 

 tined, not only from ruptures of the blood, 

 or air-vessels in the lungs (originating in 

 causes repeatedly described), terminating in 

 ulcers, tubercles ) and callosities ; but in a schir- 

 rosity of the liver, and induration of some of 

 the glandular parts, and many other internal 

 complaints or injuries to which the references, 

 by symptoms remote from the seat of pain 

 or disease, must be often deceptive, so as in 

 some cases to perplex more than direct. 

 This being a very fair and candid state of 



