Memoirs of Erasmus Darwin, M.D. 161 



part to another of it is slower, than that of the effused lymph 

 in the cavity of the chest. 



The hydrops thoracis is often complicated with fits of con- 

 vulsive breathing; and then it produces a disease for the 

 time very similar to the common periodic asthma, which is 

 perhaps owing to a temporary anasarca of the lungs ; or to 

 an impaired venous absorption iu them. These exacerba- 

 tions of difficult breathing are attended with cold extremities, 

 cold breath, cold tongue, upright posture with the mouth 

 open, and a desire of cold air, and a quick, weak, intermit- 

 tent pulse, and contracted hands. 



These exacerbations recur sometimes every two or three 

 hours, and are relieved by opium, a grain every hour for 

 two or three doses, with ether about a dram in cold water ; 

 and seem to be a convulsion of the muscles of respiration 

 induced hy the pain of the dyspnoea. 



M. M. A grain of dried squill, and a quarter of a grain of 

 blue vitriol every hour for six or eight hours, unless it vomit 

 or purge. A grain of opium. Blisters. Calomel three grains 

 every third day, with infusion of senna. Bark. Chalybeates. 

 Puncture in the side. 



Can the fluctuation in the chest be heard by applying the 

 ear to the side, as Hippocrates asserts ? Can it be felt by 

 the hand or by the patient before the disease is too great to 

 admit of cure by the paracentesis ? Does this dropsy of the 

 chest often come on after peripneumony ? Is it ever cured 

 by making the patient sick by tincture of digitalis ? Could 

 it be cured, if on one side only, by the operation of puncture 

 between the ribs, and afterwards by inflaming the cavity by 

 the admission of air for a time, like the cure of the hydro- 

 cele ; the pleura afterwards adhering wholly to that lobe of 

 the lungs, so as to prevent any future effusion of mucus ? 



Ohesitas. — Corpulency may be called an anasarca or dropsv 

 of fat, since it must be owing to an analogous cause ; that 

 is, to the deficient absorption of fat compared to the quan- 

 tity secreted into the cells which contain it. 



The method of getting free from too much fat without 



any injury to the constitution, consists, first, in putting on 



a proper bandage on the belly, so that it can be tightened 



Vol. 32. No. 126. Nov. 1 808. L or 



