464 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
general characteristics with the fluids found in the bodies of 
human beings suffering from beri-beri. 
The symptoms are extreme weakness and prostration, 
dyspnceea and palpitation on exertion, numbness of the 
lower extremities, followed by cedema, anesthesia, and, more 
rarely, by paralysis. The cedema gradually pervades the whole 
body, and effusions take place within the cranium, pleura, 
or pericardium. Pari passu with the increase of the dropsy, 
the whole body becomes numb. The urine is high-coloured 
and scanty, the specific gravity 1030 to 1040, and acid. It 
may be suppressed. Constipation is usually present. Con- 
siderable pain is often experienced in the cardiac region, and 
the pulse is irregular, unless effusion takes place within the 
cranium, when headache and delirium are frequent, and the 
pulse is slow and full. The prognosis is good if the disease 
occurs in young and otherwise healthy individuals, but the 
mortality on the whole is about 30 per cent. 
The treatment consists in the use of iron, nux vomica and 
diuretics, and a stimulating nutritious diet. In India, Treeak 
farook is used with advantage. Frictions with rubefacient 
liniments are useful; petroleum, externally and internally, 
has been advised by 8. Arokeum. The only preventive 
measure which can be recommended, apart from the ordinary 
precautions, is to ensure a good water-supply. 
Bilharzia Homaturia. 
This disease is caused by the ingestion of water containing 
the embryos of the Bilharzia hematobia, or possibly by 
bathing in water infested by them. It causes hematuria, 
cystitis, pyelitis, and sometimes dysentery. It is chiefly met 
with in Egypt and at the Cape of Good Hope. 
It is quite possible that some minute leech-like animal 
fixes itself on the skin of the bather, and by means of an 
ovipositor implants the ova in some superficial cutaneous 
_ vein, and then the free embryos might be carried by the 
circulation from the ankle or leg to the pelvis. Persons who 
use river water, or water from pools or marshes, are most 
frequently attacked by ‘the disease, those who use stored 
