CLASS I. 2. 3. 16. OF IRRITATION. 93 



brane of the lungs is usually connected with that of the other 

 parts of the system. As the cells of the whole cellular mem- 

 brane communicate with each other, the mucilaginous fluid, 

 which remains in any part of it for want of due absorption, sinks 

 down to the most depending cells; hence the legs swell, though 

 the cause of the disease, the deficiency of absorption, may be in 

 other parts of the system. The lungs however are an exception 

 to this, since they are suspended in the cavity of the thorax, and 

 have in consequence a depending part of their own. 



The anasarca of the lungs is known by the difficulty of respi- 

 ration accompanied with swelled legs, and with a very irregu- 

 lar pulse. This last circumstance has generally been ascribed 

 to a dropsy at the same time existing in the pericardium, but is 

 more probably owing to the difficult passage of the blood through 

 the lungs; because I found on dissection, in one instance, that 

 the most irregular pulse, which I ever attended to, was owing to 

 very extensive adhesion of the lungs; insomuch that one lobe in- 

 tirely adhered to the pleura; and secondly, because this kind of 

 dropsy of the lungs is so certainly removed for a time along with 

 the anasarca of the limbs by the use of digitalis. 



This medicine, as well as emetic tartar, or squill, when given 

 so as to produce sickness, or nausea, or perhaps even without 

 producing either in any perceptible degree, by affecting the lym- 

 phatics of the stomach, so as either to invert their motion, or to 

 weaken them, increases by reverse sympathy the action, and con- 

 sequent absorbent power of these lymphatics, which open into 

 the cellular membrane. But as these medicines seldom succeed 

 in producing an absorption of those fluids, which stagnate in the 

 larger cavities of the body, as in the abdomen, or chest, and do 

 generally succeed in this difficulty of breathing with irregular 

 pulse above described. I conclude that it is not owing to an effu- 

 sion of lymph into the pericardium, but simply to an anasarca 

 of the lungs. 



M. M. Digitalis. See Art. V. 2. I. 2. and IV. 2. 3. 7. 

 Tobacco. Squill. Emetic tartar (antimonium tartarizatum.) 

 Then Sorbentia. Chalybeates. Opium half a grain twice a 

 day. Raisin wine and water, or other wine and water, is pre- 

 ferred to the spirit and water, which these patients have gene- 

 rally been accustomed to. 



I have seen two cases, which were esteemed to be hydrotho- 

 rax, but which I believed to be anasarca pulmonum, though they 

 were attended with irregular pulse; for I do not understand, 

 why an irregularity of pulse should be occasioned by water in 

 the pericardium any more than by water in the lungs, or by 



