EMACIATIONS. 563 



MDCV. The diminution and deficiency of the fluids may be 

 occasioned by different causes : such as, first, by a due quantity 

 of aliments not being taken in ; or by the aliment taken in 

 not being of a sufficiently nutritious quality. Of the want of a 

 due quantity of aliment being taken into the body, there is an 

 instance in the Atrophia lactantium Sauvagesii, species 3. ; 

 and many other examples have occurred of emaciation from 

 want of food, occasioned by poverty, and other accidental 

 causes. 



With respect to the quality of food, I apprehend it arises from 

 the want of nutritious matter in the food employed, that persons 

 living very entirely on vegetables are seldom of a plump and 

 succulent habit. 



MDCVI. A second cause of the deficiency of fluids may be, 

 the aliments taken in not being conveyed to the blood-vessels. 

 This may occur from a person's being affected with a frequent 

 vomiting ; which, rejecting the food soon after it had been 

 taken in, must prevent the necessary supply of fluids to the 

 blood-vessels. 



Another cause, frequently interrupting the conveyance of the 

 alimentary matter into the blood-vessels, is an obstruction of the 

 conglobate or lymphatic glands of the mesentery, through which 

 the chyle must necessarily pass to the thoracic duct. Many in- 

 stances of emaciation, seemingly depending upon this cause, 

 have been observed by physicians, in persons of all ages, but 

 especially in the young. It has also been remarked, that such 

 cases have most frequently occurred in scrofulous persons, in 

 whom the mesenteric glands are commonly affected with tumour 

 or obstruction, and in whom, generally at the same time, scro- 

 fula appears externally. Hence the Tabes scrophulosa Synop. 

 Nosolog. (gen. LXIX.). And under these I have put as syno- 

 nymes, Tabes glandularis, sp. 10. ; Tabes mensenterica, sp. 

 9. ; Scrophula mesenterica, sp. 4. ; Atrophia infantilis, sp. . 

 i 13. ; Atrophia rachitica, sp. 8. ; Tabes rachialgica, sp. 16. 

 :, At the same time, I have frequently found the case occurring 

 j in persons who did not show any external appearance of scrofula, 

 j but in whom the mesenteric obstruction was afterwards discover- 

 'j ed by dissection. Such also I suppose to have been the case in 

 the disease frequently mentioned by authors under the title of 



2 N 2 



