90 DISEASES CLASS. 1. 2. 3. 14, 



whence they are less at liberty to perform other offices, than to 

 the connexion of nerves mentioned in Sect. XXIX. 5. 2. The 

 difficulty of swallowing is owing to the compression of the 

 oesophagus by the lymph in the chest; and the impossibility of 

 breathing in a horizontal posture originates from this, that if any 

 parts of the lungs must be rendered useless, the inability of the 

 extremities of them must be less inconvenient to respiration; 

 since if the upper parts or larger trunks of the air-vessels should 

 be rendered useless by the compression of the accumulated lymph, 

 the air could not gain admittance to the other parts, and the ani- 

 mal must immediately perish. 



If the pericardium is the principal seat of the disease, the 

 pulse is quick and irregular. If only the cavity of the thorax is 

 hydropic, the pulse is not quick nor irregular. 



If one side is more affected than the other, the patient leans 

 most that way, and has more numbness in that arm. 



The hydrops thoracis is distinguished from the anasarca pul- 

 monum, as the patient in the former cannot lie down half a mi- 

 nute; in the latter the difficulty of breathing, which occasions 

 him to rise up, comes on more gradually; as the transition of 

 the lymph in the cellular membrane from one part to another of 

 it is slower, than that of the effused lymph in the cavity of the 

 chest. 



The hydrops thoracis is often complicated with fits of con- 

 vulsive breathing; and then it produces a disease for the time 

 very similar to the common periodic asthma, which is perhaps 

 owing to a temporary anasarca of the lungs; or to an impaired 

 venous absorption in them. These exacerbations of difficult 

 breathing are attended with cold extremities, cold breath, cold 

 tongue, upright posture with the mouth open, and a desire of 

 cold air, and a quick, weak, intermittent pulse, and contracted 

 hands. 



These exacerbations recur sometimes every two or three hours, 

 and are relieved by opium, a grain every hour for two or three 

 doses, with ether about a dram in cold water; and seem to be a 

 convulsion of the muscles of respiration induced by the pain of 

 the dyspnoea. As in Class III. 1.1.9. 



M. M. A grain of dried squill, and a quarter of a grain of 

 blue vitriol every hour for six or eight hours, unless it vomit or 

 purge. A grain of opium. Blisters. Calomel three grains every 

 third day, with infusion of senna. Bark. Chalybeates. Punc- 

 ture in the side. 



Can the fluctuation in the chest be heard by applying the ear 

 to the side, as Hippocrates asserts? Can it be felt by the hand or 

 by the patient before the disease is too great to admit of cure by 



