S3 DISEASES CLASS I. 2. 3. 13, 



feen and read of this difeafe, I believed it to belong to inflamma- 

 tions, and at an earlier period I ihould 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 abforbents indu- 

 ced by inflammation. My reafons are briefly thefe : i. The 

 acutenefs of the pain. 2. The (late of the pulfe. In the above 

 cafe for the firft 9 or 10 days it did not exceed no, and was 

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

 look place, Mailer 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 feen this difeafe, but the patients were too young, or 

 too far advanced, to inform me, whether they had chillnefs iuc- 

 ceeded by heat at its onfet. 4. The diforders to which the 

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

 clrocephalus interims is an inflammatory difeafe ; and this is 

 confirmed by the regularity of the period, within which it fin- 

 iihes its courfe. And laftly, does not happen more frequently 

 than is fufpecled from external injury ? 



" I have juft now been well informed, that Dr. Rufh has 

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

 relate here the reafons for an opinion without pretending to a 

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

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

 lUfFufe ftyle, which I trufl your example will banilh from medi- 

 cal literature." 



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

 generally fucceeds an injury, and confequent inflammation of 

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

 principally attend inebriates, are confequent to too great action 

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

 ipirits. And laftly, that as thefe cafes of hydrocephalus end fo 

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

 deferves to be ferioufly attended to. 



This idea of inflammation preceding hydrocephalus was men- 

 tioned by Dr. CVu'n, and afterwards in a pamphlet of Dr. Pat- 

 erfon, of Dublin. 



13. Afcites. The dropfy of the cavity of the abdomen is 

 known by a tenfe fwelling of the belly *, which does not found 

 on being (truck like the tympany ; and in which a fluctuation 

 can be readily perceived by applying one hand expanded on one 

 fide, and ftriking the tumour on the other. 



Effufions 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 re-abforbed, than the effufion of 

 fluids into the cellular membrane , becaufe one part of this ex- 



tenfivc 



