PROFLUVIA. 311 



BOOK V. 



OF PROFLUVIA, OR FLUXES WITH PYREXIA. 



MXLV. Former nosologists have established a class of dis- 

 eases under the title of Fluxes, or Profluvia ; but as, in this 

 class, they have brought together a great number of diseases 

 which have nothing in common, excepting the single circum- 

 stance of an increased discharge of fluids*, and which also are, in 

 other respects, very different from one another ; I have avoided 

 so improper an arrangement, and have distributed most of the 

 diseases comprehended in such a class by the nosologists, into 

 places more natural and proper for them. I have, indeed, still 

 employed here the general title ; but I confine it to such fluxes 

 only as are constantly attended with pyrexia, and which there- 

 fore necessarily belong to the class of diseases of which I am 

 now treating. 



Of the fluxes which may be considered as being very con- 

 stantly febrile diseases, there are only two, the catarrh and dy* 

 sentery ; and of these therefore I now proceed to treat 



HAP. I. OF THE CATARRH. 



MXLVI. The Catarrh is an increased excretion of mucus 

 from the mucous membrane of the nose, fauces, and bronchiae, 

 attended with pyrexia. 



Practical writers and nosologists have distinguished the dis- 

 ease by different appellations, according as it happens to affect 

 those different parts of the mucous membrane, the one part 

 more or less than the other : But I am of opinion, that the dis- 



