584 PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



That such a cause may operate, appears probable from this, 

 that paralytic limbs, in which such a laxity is to be suspected, 

 are frequently affected with serous, or as they are called, cede- 

 matous swellings. 



But a much more remarkable and frequent example of its 

 operation occurs in the case of a general debility of the system, 

 which is so often attended with dropsy. That a general debil- 

 ity does induce dropsy, appears sufficiently from its being so 

 commonly the consequence of powerfully debilitating causes ; 

 such as fevers, either of the continued or intermittent kind, 

 which have lasted long ; long-continued and somewhat exces- 

 sive evacuations of any kind ; and, in short, almost all diseases 

 that have been of long continuance, and have at the same time 

 induced the other symptoms of a general debility. 



Among other causes inducing a general debility of the sys- 

 tem, and thereby dropsy, there is one to be mentioned as fre- 

 quently occurring, and that is intemperance in the use of in- 

 toxicating liquors ; from whence it is that drunkards of all 

 kinds, and especially dram-drinkers, are so affected with this 

 disease. 



MDCLVII. That a general debility may produce a laxity 

 of the exhalents, will be readily allowed ; and that by this es- 

 pecially it occasions dropsy, I judge from thence, that while 

 most of the causes already mentioned are suited to produce 

 dropsies of particular parts only, the state of general debility 

 gives rise to an increased exhalation into every cavity and inter- 

 stice of the body, and therefore brings on a general disease. 

 Thus, we have seen effusions of a serous fluid made, at the 

 same time, into the cavity of the cranium, into that of the 

 thorax and of the abdomen, and likewise into the cellular tex- 

 ture almost over the whole of the body. In such cases, the 

 operation of a general cause discovered itself, by these several 

 dropsies increasing in one part as they diminished in another, 

 and this alternately in the different parts. This combination, 

 therefore, of the different species of dropsy, or rather, as it 

 may be termed, this universal dropsy, must, I think, be referred 

 to a general cause ; and, in most instances, hardly any other 

 can be thought of, but a general laxity of the exhalents. It is 

 this, therefore, that I call the hydropic diathesis; which fre- 



