592 PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



the manner I have just now described ; while they term Leuco- 

 phlegmatia, that in which the same kind of swelling appears 

 even at first very generally over the whole body. They seem 

 to think also, that the two diseases proceed from different causes ; 

 and that, while the anasarca may arise from the several causes 

 in MDCXLVIIL MDCLIX. the leucophlegmatia pro- 

 ceeds especially from a deficiency of red blood, as we have men- 

 tioned in MDCLX. et seq. I cannot, however, find any pro- 

 per foundation for this distinction. For although in dropsies 

 proceeding from the causes mentioned in MDCLX. et seq. the 

 disease appears in some cases more immediately affecting the 

 whole body ; yet that does not establish a difference from the 

 common case of anasarca : for the disease, in all its circumstances, 

 comes at length to be entirely the same ; and in the cases oc- 

 casioned by a deficiency of red blood, I have frequently ob- 

 served it to come on exactly in the manner of anasarca, as above 

 described. 



MDCLXX. An anasarca is evidently a preternatural col- 

 lection of serous fluid in the cellular texture immediately under 

 the skin. Sometimes pervading the skin itself, it oozes out 

 through the pores of the cuticle ; and sometimes, too gross to 

 pass by these, it raises the cuticle in blisters. Sometimes the 

 skin, not allowing the water to pervade it, is compressed and 

 hardened, and at the same time so much distended, as to give 

 anasarcous tumours an unusual firmness. It is in these last 

 circumstances also that an erythematic inflammation is ready to 

 come upon anasarcous swellings. 



MDCLXXI. An anasarca may immediately arise from any 

 of the several causes of dropsy, which act more generally upon 

 the system : and even when other species of dropsy, from par- 

 ticular circumstances, appear first ; yet whenever these proceed 

 from any causes more generally affecting the system, an ana- 

 sarca sooner or later comes always to be joined with them. 



MDCLXXII. The manner in which this disease commonly 

 first appears, will be readily explained by what I have said in 

 MDCL. respecting the effects of the posture of the body. Its 

 gradual progress, and its affecting, after some time, not only the 

 cellular texture under the skin, but probably also much of the 

 same texture in the internal parts, will be understood partly 



