SECT. XXIX. 4. 9. ABSORBENTS. 249 



urinary branch, and pours it into the bladder. Hence this mu- 

 cilaginous diabetes is a cure, or the confequence of a cure, of a 

 worfe difeafe, rather than a difeafe itfelf. 



Dr. Cotunnius gave half an ounce of cream of tartar, every 

 morning, to a patient, who had the anafarca ; and he voided a 

 great quantity of urine ; a part of which, put over the fire, co- 

 agulated, on the evaporation of half of it, fo as to look like the 

 white of an egg- De Ifchiade Nervos. 



This kind of diabetes frequently precedes a dropfy, and has 

 this remarkable circumflance attending it, that it generally hap- 

 pens in the night; as during the recumbent (late of the body, 

 the fluid, thar was accumulated in the cellular membrane, or in 

 the lungs, is more readily abforbed, as it is lefs impeded by its 

 gravity. I have feen more than one inftance of this difeafe. 

 Mr. D. a man in the decline of life, who had long accuftomed 

 himfelf to fpirituous liquor, had fwelled legs, and other fymp- 

 toms of approaching anafarca ; about once in a week or ten days, 

 for tevcral months, he was feized, on going to bed, with great 

 general uneaHnefs, which his attendants refembled to an hyfteric 

 fit ; and which terminated in a great difcharge of vifcid urine 5 

 his legs became lefs fwelled, and he continued in better health 

 for fome days afterwards. I had not the opportunity to try if 

 this urine would coagulate over the fire, when part of it was 

 evaporated, which I imagine would be the criterion of this kind 

 of diabetes ; as the mucilaginous fluid depofited in the cells and 

 cyds of the body, which h tve no communication with the exter- 

 nal air, feems to acquire, by ilagnation, this property of coagula- 

 tion by heat, which the fecreted mucus of the inteltines and blad- 

 der do not appear to poffrfs ; as I have found by experiment : 

 and if any one fhou'd fuppofe this coaguiable urine was fepa- 

 rated from the blood by the kidneys, he may recollecT; that in the 

 mod inflammatory diieafes, in which the blood is moil replete 

 or moil ready to part with the coaguiable lymph, none of this 

 appears in the urine. 



9. Different kinds of diabetes require different methods of 

 cure. For the firft kind, chyliferous diabetes, after clearing 

 the ftomach and inteftines, by ipecacuanha and rhubarb, to 

 evacu-ite any acid material, which may too powerfully ftimulate 

 the mouths of the lacleals, repeated and large dofes of tincture 

 of cantharides have been much recommended. The fpecific 

 flimulus of this medicine, on the neck of the bladder, is likely 

 to excite the numerous abiorbent veilels, which are fpread on 

 that part, into flronger natural adlioiis, and by that means pre- 

 vent their retrograde ones; till, by perfiiting in the ufe of the 

 medicine, their natural habits of motions might again be. eftab- 

 VOL, I. I i lifted. 



