88 DISEASES CLASS I. 2. 3. 13- 



seen and read of this disease, I believed it to belong to inflamma- 

 tions, and at an earlier period I should be tempted to bleed as 

 largely as for pneumonia. The fluid found after death in the ven- 

 tricles of the brain I impute to debility of the absorbents induc- 

 ed by inflammation* My reasons are briefly these: 1. The 

 acuteness of the pain. 2. The state of the pulse. In the above 

 case for the first 9 or 10 days it did not exceed 110, and was 

 full and strong. 3. To find out whether any febrile alternations 

 took place, Master L.'s feet were frequently felt, and they were 

 found at times cold, and at other times of a dry heat. I have 

 many times seen this disease, but the patients were too young, or 

 too far advanced, to inform me, whether they had chilness suc- 

 ceeded by heat at its onset. 4. The disorders to which the 

 young are more peculiarly liable afford a presumption, that hy- 

 drocephalus internus is an inflammatory disease; and this is 

 confimied by the regularity of the period, within which it finishes 

 its course. And lastly, does not happen more frequently than is 

 suspected from external injury? 



" I have just now been well informed, that Dr. Rush has 

 lately cured five out of six patients by copious bleedings. I 

 relate here the reasons for an opinion without pretending to a 

 discovery. Something like this doctrine may be found in cer- 

 tain modern publications, but it is delivered in that vague and 

 diffuse style, which I trust your example will banish from medi- 

 cal literature." 



To this idea of Dr. Beddoes may be added, that the hydrocele 

 generally succeeds an injury, and consequent inflammation of 

 the bag, which contains it. And that other dropsies, which 

 principally attend inebriates, are consequent to too great action 

 of the mucous membranes by the stimulus of beer, wine, and 

 spirits. And lastly, that as these cases of hydrocephalus end so 

 fatally, a new mode of treating them is much to be desired, and 

 deserves to be seriously attended to. 



This idea of inflammation preceding bydrocephalus was men- 

 tioned by Dr. Quin, and afterwards in a pamphlet of Dr. Pater- 

 son of Dublin. 



13. Jlscites. The dropsy of the cavity of the abdomen is 

 known by a tense swelling of the belly; which does not sound 

 on being struck like the tympany; and in which a fluctuation 

 can be readily perceived by applying one hand expanded on one 

 side, and striking the tumour on the other. 



Effusions of water into large cavities, as into that of the abdo- 

 men or thorax, or into the ventricles of the brain or pericardi- 

 um, are more difficult to be reabsorbed, than the effusion of 

 fluids into the cellular membrane; because one part of this ex- 



