126 DR seller's memoir OF THE 



both afford new proofs of his doctrine of sympathy, and show with how much 

 knowledge, zeal, and ability he strove to throw light on the alarming symp- 

 toms brought under his consideration. The whole work bears undeniable evi- 

 dence that Whytt was in advance of the age in which he lived, and brings home 

 the conviction, that he stands among those whose labours most largely contri- 

 buted to the rapid strides of medicine in the latter half of the eighteenth century. 

 This work was translated into French in 1767, by Begue de Presle. 



One important work remains to be noticed, which was not published till after 

 the author's death. The title of the work referred to is " Observations on the 

 Dropsy in the Brain." Whytt, in this work, claims for himself an originality 

 which has not been conceded to him undisputed. He enumerates the authors 

 who wrote before him on Hydrocephalus. He shows that Hippocrates, by the 

 term Hydrocephalus, signified water between the membranes and the brain ; that 

 later authors, such as Mercurialis, Wepfer, Boerhaave, have indeed referred 

 to cases of water being found after death within the ventricles of the brain, but 

 had failed to mention the symptoms by which the dropsy of the ventricles of the 

 brain is characterised. He adds, that Petit had stated that he never found in 

 his dissections water within the cranium anywhere but in the ventricles of the 

 brain, whence he infers the rarity of any other seat of water within the head. 

 He admits that Petit mentions some of the symptoms which occur in dropsy of 

 the ventricles, but insists that those he refers to are not the most characteristic 

 signs of the early state of the disease. Le Dran, he says, has described the 

 symptoms of Hydrocephalus internus in such a manner as would lead one to be- 

 lieve he had never seen the disease, unless when conjoined with water between 

 the membranes and the brain. Of Dr Donald Monro's account of Hydrocephalus 

 in his treatise on Dropsy, he remarks, that while he correctly enumerated all the 

 varieties, he has not stated symptoms by which the internal species could be dis- 

 tinguished from the other species, and from other diseases of the head. Fother- 

 GiLL and Watson published their accounts of this disease two years after Whytt's 

 death, but in the same year in which his treatise first appeared in the collected 

 edition of his works. It was considered by Whytt as a dropsy, nor was it till 

 fifteen years after his death that its inflammatory character was first hinted at 

 by Dr Withering. Whytt's merit lies chiefly in the correct exhibition of the 

 diagnostic symptoms of the early stages. Of these his account is admirable. It 

 was founded on the observation of twent}'^ cases, in ten of which the presence of 

 the disease was attested by a 'post-mortem inspection. It is hardly to be doubted, 

 then, that he is entitled to the merit of having first brought this disease within 

 the compass of treatment in its earlier stages. 



Besides his two great treatises, and the several productions collected together 

 in the edition of his works published in 1768 by his son and Sir John Pringle, 

 there are several other detached papers, of which there is a complete list under 



