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or purple blotches, blood constantly oozes. Soon after swell- 

 ings appear about the head, sternum, belly, sheath, and hind 

 limbs ; this is caused by the effusion of serum, mingled with 

 blood, into the cellular tissue. After a little time these 

 enlargements become firm and hard, and crack in a few 

 days, when bloody serum exudes from the openings. The 

 skin is hot and thickened, but not painfull. These swell- 

 ings must not be confounded with anasarca, for there are 

 important distinctions between them ; in the first place, they 

 are not the offspring of the same vicious parents (although 

 some contend that they are cousins on the mother's side). 

 All dropsies proceed from a depraved habit or system, or, 

 in other words, an error of development and vice of nutri- 

 tion affecting the general state of the organs and functions 

 with perversion or debility. 



In the former the swelling is firm and unyielding to the 

 touch ; in the latter it is soft and pitting on pressure. The 

 cause producing the one is called by learned folk "' toxremia," 

 the other "cachexia." 



In the second instance the serum effused into the cellular 

 tissue which produces the swellings is mingled with blood ; 

 in the case of general dropsy it is simply serum. 



Besides the symptoms already mentioned there are 

 others. The appetite fails, the bowels irritable and irregu- 

 lar, the action of the kidneys is also imperfectly performed, 

 the pulse is quick and weak, and there is great general 

 debility ; the swellings about the head and lips interfere 

 with eating, and, more serious still, purple extravasations 

 similar to those within the nostrils are apt to spread along 

 the mucous membrane of the stomach and bowels, giving 

 rise to indigestion, colic and diarrhoea. 



Not only so, but these blotches may appear on the still 

 more sensitive lining of the bronchial tubes and lungs, pro- 

 ducing blowing, choking, and a suffocating cough. These 

 symptoms are seen in the dilated, flapping nostrils, from 

 which bloody serum trickles. In bad cases of this sort 

 prostration or suffocation carries off the patient in a few days. 



