634 PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



its symptoms, which at length proves fatal, with sometimes the 

 symptoms of a phthisis pulmonalis. 



MDCCXLIX. The bodies of persons who have died of this 

 disease show many of the viscera in a very morbid state ; and 

 particularly most of the glands of the mesentery very much 

 tumefied, and frequently in an ulcerated state. Commonly also 

 a great number of tubercles or cysts, containing matter of vari- 

 ous kinds, appear in the lungs. 



MDCCL. Such is the history of the disease ; and from 

 thence it may appear, that the nature of it is not easily to be 

 ascertained. It seems to be a peculiar affection of the lym- 

 phatic system ; and this in some measure accounts for its con- 

 nexion with a particular period of life. Probably, however, 

 there is a peculiar acrimony of the fluids that is the proximate 

 cause of the disease ; although of what nature this is has not yet 

 been discovered. It may perhaps be generally diffused in the 

 system, and exhaled into the several cavities and cellular tex- 

 ture of the body ; and therefore, being taken up by the ab- 

 sorbents, may discover itself especially in the lymphatic system. 

 This, however, will hardly account for its being more confined 

 to that system than happens in the case of many other acri- 

 monies which may be supposed to be as generally diffused. In 

 short, its appearance in particular constitutions, and at a par- 

 ticular period of life, and even its being a hereditary disease, 

 which so frequently depends upon the transmission of a peculiar 

 constitution, are all of them circumstances which lead me to 

 conclude, upon the whole, that this disease depends upon a 

 peculiar constitution of the lymphatic system. 



MDCCLI. It seems proper to observe here, that the scro- 

 fula does not appear to be a contagious disease ; at least I have 

 known many instances of sound children having had frequent 

 and close intercourse with scrofulous children without being 

 infected with the disease. This certainly shows, that in this 

 disease the peculiar acrimony of it is not exhaled from the sur- 

 face of the body, but that it depends especially upon a peculiar 

 constitution of the system. 



MDCCLII. Several authors have supposed the scrofula to 

 have been derived from the venereal disease : but upon no just 



