EMACIATIONS. 569 



ciation may be attributed to the profuse sweatings that com- 

 monly attend the disease ; but there is much reason to believe 

 that an acrimony also is present in the blood ; which, even in 

 the beginning of the disease, prevents the secretion and accu- 

 mulation of oil, and in the more advanced states of it, must 

 occasion a more considerable absorption of it ; which, from the 

 shrinking of the cellular substance, seems to go farther than in 

 almost any other instance. 



Upon the subject of emaciations from a deficiency of fluids, 

 it may be observed, that every increased evacuation excites an 

 absorption from other parts, and particularly from the cellular 

 texture ; and it is therefore probable, that a deficiency of fluids 

 from increased evacuations, produces an emaciation, not only by 

 the waste of the fluids in the vascular system, but also by oc- 

 casioning a considerable absorption from the cellular texture. 



MDCXVIII. I have thus endeavoured to explain the several 

 cases and causes of emaciation ; but I could not prosecute the 

 consideration of these here in the order they are set down in 

 the Methodical Nosology. In that work I was engaged chiefly 

 in arranging the species of Sauvages ; but it is my opinion now, 

 that the arrangement there given is erroneous, in both com- 

 bining and separating species improperly ; and it seems to me 

 more proper here to take notice of diseases, and put them together 

 according to the affinity of their nature, rather than by that of 

 their external appearances. I doubt if even the distinction of 

 the Tabes and Atrophia, attempted in the Nosology, will pro- 

 perly apply ; as I think there are certain diseases of the same 

 nature, which sometimes appear with, and sometimes without, 

 fever. 



MDCXIX. After having considered the various cases of 

 emaciations, I should perhaps treat of their cure ; but it will 

 readily appear that the greater part of the cases above men- 

 tioned are purely symptomatic, and consequently that the cure 

 of them must be that of the primary diseases upon which they 

 depend. Of those cases that can anywise be considered as idio- 

 pathic, it will appear that they are to be cured entirely by re- 

 moving the remote causes ; the means of accomplishing which 

 must be sufficiently obvious. 



