INTUMESCENTI^. 023 



its length. If the child, at the time the disease comes on, had 

 acquired the power of walking, it becomes daily more feeble in 

 its motions, and more averse to the exertion of them, losing at 

 length the power of walking altogether. Whilst these symp- 

 toms go on increasing, the abdomen is always full, and preter- 

 naturally tumid. The appetite is often good, but the stools 

 are generally frequent and loose. Sometimes the faculties of 

 the mind are impaired, and stupidity or fatuity prevails ; but 

 commonly a premature sensibility appears, and they acquire the 

 faculty of speech sooner than usual. At the first coming on of 

 the disease, there is generally no fever attending it ; but it sel- 

 dom continues long, till a frequent pulse, and other febrile symp- 

 toms, come to be constantly present. With these symptoms 

 the disease proceeds, and continues in some instances for some 

 years ; but very often, in the course of that time, the disease 

 ceases to advance ; and the health is entirely established, except 

 that the distorted limbs, produced during the disease, continue 

 for the rest of life. In other cases, however, the disease pro- 

 ceeds increasing, till it has affected almost every function of the 

 animal economy, and at length terminates in death. The va- 

 riety of symptoms which in such cases appear, it does not seem 

 necessary to enumerate, as they are not essential to the consti- 

 tution of the disease, but are merely consequences of the more 

 violent conditions of it. In the bodies of those who have died, 

 various morbid affections have been discovered in the internal 

 parts. Most of the viscera of the abdomen have been found to 

 be preternaturally enlarged. The lungs have also been found in 

 a morbid state, seemingly from some inflammation that had 

 come on towards the end of the disease. The brain has been 

 commonly found in a flaccid state, with effusions of a serous 

 fluid into its cavities. Very universally the bones have been 

 found very soft, and so much softened as to be readily cut by a 

 knife. The fluids have been always found in a dissolved state, 

 and the muscular parts very soft and tender ; and the whole of 

 the dead body without any degree of that rigidity which is so 

 common in almost all others. 



MDCCXXV. From these circumstances of the disease,' it 

 seems to consist in a deficiency of that matter which should 

 form the solid parts of the body. This especially appears in 



1 



