HJEMORRHAGIE8. 



affection only ; but must observe farther, that although the 

 disease appears first as a purely topical affection, it may, by 

 frequent repetition, become habitual, and therefore may 

 become connected with the whole system, in the manner al- 

 ready explained with respect to hsemorrhagy in general, in 

 DCCXLVIII. 



DCCCCXLIV. The doctrine now referred to, will, it is 

 apprehended, apply very fully to the case of the hsemorrhoidal 

 flux ; and will the more readily apply, from the person who 

 has been once affected being much exposed to a renewal of the 

 causes which first occasioned the disease ; and from many 

 persons being much exposed to a congestion in the hsemorrhoidal 

 vessels, in consequence of their being often in an erect position 

 of the body, and in an exercise which pushes the blood into 

 the depending vessels, while at the same time, the effects of 

 these circumstances are much favoured by the abundance and 

 laxity of the cellular texture about the rectum. 



DCCCCXLV. It is thus that the hsemorrhoidal flux is so 

 often artificially rendered an habitual and systematic affection ; 

 and I am persuaded, that it is this which has given occasion to 

 the Stahlians to consider the disease as almost universally such. 



DCCCCXLVI. It is to be particularly observed here, that 

 when the haemorrhoidal disease has either been originally, or has 

 become, in the manner just now explained, a systematic affec- 

 tion, it then acquires a particular connexion with the stomach, 

 so that certain affections there excite the haemorrhoidal disease, 

 and certain states of the haemorrhoidal affection excite disor- 

 ders of the stomach. 



It is perhaps owing to this connexion, that the gout sometimes 

 affects the rectum. See DXXV. 



SECT. II. OF THE CURE OF H/EMOHRHOIDAL AFFECTIONS. 



DCCCCXLVI I. Almost at all times it has been an opin- 

 ion amongst physicians, and from them spread amongst the 

 people, that the haemorrhoidal flux is a salutary evacuation, 

 which prevents many diseases that would otherwise have hap- 

 pened ; and that it even contributes to give long life. This 

 opinion, in later times, has been especially maintained by Dr. 



VOL. II. S 



