DISEASES CLASS IV. 1.3.16. 



tacking two fimilar parts at the fame time, as both ankles and 

 both wrifls, and thefe attacks being in fucceffion to each other. 

 Whereas it is not probable that both feet or both hands fhould 

 at the fame time be equally expofed to any external caufe of the 

 difeafe, as to cold or moifture ; and lefs fo that thefe fhould oc- 

 cur in fucceffion. Laftly, from the inflammatory diathefis in 

 this difeafe being more difficult to fubdue, and more dangerous 

 in event, than other common inflammations, efpecially to preg- 

 nant women, and in weak conflitutions. 



From this idea of the rheumatifm being not a primary dif- 

 eafe, like the gout, but a transferred morbid action owing to the 

 previous torpor of fome other part of the fyftem, we perceive 

 why it attacks weak people with greater pertinacity than ilrong 

 ones ; refilling or recurring again and again after frequent evac- 

 .is, in a manner very different from primary inflammations 5 

 :ife the caufe is not removed, which is at adiftance from the 

 feat of the inflammation. 



This alfo accounts for rheumatic inflammations fo very rarely 

 terminating in fuppuration, becaufe like the gout the original 

 caufe is not in the inflamed part> and therefore does not con- 

 tinue to aft after the inflammation commences, Inftead of fup- 

 puration in this difeafe, as well as in the gout, a quantity of 

 mucus or coagulable lymph is formed on the inflamed mem- 

 brane ; which in the gout changes into chalk-ftones, and in the 

 rheumatifm is either reabforbed, or lies on the membrane, pro- 

 ducing pains on motion long after the termination of the inflam-. 

 mation, which pains are called chronic rheumatifm. The mem- 

 branes, which have thus been once or repeatedly inflamed, become 

 3efs mobile, or lefs liable to be affected by fympathy, as appears 

 by the gout affecting new parts, when the joints of the foot 

 have been frequently inflamed by it 5 hence as the caufe of the 

 inflammation does not exity in the inflamed part, and as this 

 part becomes lefs liable to future attacks, it feldorn fuppurates. 



Pleurodyne rheumatic a. When rheumatifm affeds the 

 xnufcles of the cheft, it produces fymptoms fimUar to pleu- 

 ri<>, but diftinguifhed from it by the patient having previouily 

 {uffered rheumatic affections in other parts, and by the perti- 

 nacity or continuance of the inflammatory ftate of the patient. 

 This fhould be termed pleurodyne rheumatica. 



Enter algick rheumatica. When rheumatic inflammation 

 fects the bowels, it produces a difeafe very different from en- 

 teritis, or common hrHammation of the bowels, and fhould be 

 termed interalgia rheumatica, The pain is lefs than in enteri* 

 tis, and the difeafe of longer continuance, with harder pulfe, and 

 the blood equally fizy. It is attended with frequent dejections* 



with 



