Diseases > Domestic medicine

drinking ardent spirits, or other strong liquors. It
is true almost to a proverb, that great drinkers die
of a dropsy. The want of exercise is also a very
common cause of the dropsy. Hence it is justly
reckoned among the diseases of the sedentary. It
often proceeds from excessive evacuations, as frequent
and copious bleedings, strong purges often repeated,
frequent salivations, &c. The sudden stoppage of
customary or necessary evacuations, as the menses,
the haemorrhoids, fluxes of the belly, &c. may
likewise cause a dropsy.
I have known the dropsy occasioned by drinking
large quantities of cold, weak, watery liquor, when
the body was heated by violent exercise. A low,
damp, or marshy situation is likewise a frequent
cause of it. Hence it is a common disease in moist,
flat, fenny countries. It may also be brought on by
a long use of poor watery diet, or of viscous aliment
that is hard of digestion. It is often the effect of
other diseases, as the jaundice, a scirrhous of the
liver, a violent ague of long continuance, a diarrhoea,
a dysentery, an empyema, or a consumption of the
lungs. In short, whatever obstructs the perspiration,
or prevents the blood from being duly prepared, may
occasion a dropsy.
Symptoms.—Anasarca generally begins with a
swelling of the feet and ancles towards night, which
for some time disappears in the morning. In the
evening the parts, if pressed with the finger, will
pit. The swelling gradually ascends, and occupies
the trunk of the body, the arms, and the head.
Afterwards the breathing becomes difficult, the urine
is in small quantity, and the thirst great; the body
is bound, and the perspiration is greatly obstructed.
To these succeed torpor, heaviness, a slow wasting
fever, and a troublesome cough. This last is