to make a
considerable turn outwards to go over the prominent part of it, where the
point of the heart is lodged, in its course to the diaphragm; and as the
other phrenic nerve of the right side has a straight course to the
diaphragm; and as many other considerable branches of this fourth pair of
cervical nerves are spread on the arms; does not a pain in the left arm
distinguish a disease of the pericardium, as in the angina pectoris, or in
the dropsy of the pericardium? and does not a pain or weakness in both arms
distinguish the dropsy of the thorax?

8. Do not the dropsies of the thorax and pericardium frequently exist
together, and thus add to the uncertainty and fatality of the disease?

9. Might not the foxglove be serviceable in hydrocephalus internus, in
hydrocele, and in white swellings of the joints?

VI. _Of cold Sweats._

There have been histories given of chronical immoderate sweatings, which
bear some analogy to the diabetes. Dr. Willis mentions a lady then living,
whose sweats where for many years so profuse, that all her bed-clothes were
not only moistened, but deluged with them every night; and that many
ounces, and sometimes pints, of this sweat, were received in vessels
properly placed, as it trickled down her body. He adds, that she had great
thirst, had taken many medicines, and submitted to various rules of life,
and changes of climate, but still continued to have these immoderate
sweats. Pharmac. ration. de sudore anglico.

Dr. Willis has also observed, that the sudor anglicanus which appeared in
England, in 1483, and continued till 1551, was in some respects similar to
the diabetes; and as Dr. Caius, who saw this disease, mentions the
viscidity, as well as the quantity of these sweats, and adds, that the
extremities were often cold, when the internal parts were burnt up with
heat and thirst, with great and speedy emaciation and debility: there is
great reason to believe, that the fluids were absorbed from the cells of
the body by the cellular and cystic branches of the lymphatics, and poured
on the skin by the retrograde motions of the cutaneous ones.

Sydenham has recorded, in the stationary fever of the year 1685, the viscid
sweats flowing from the head, which were probably from the same source as
those in the sweating plague above mentioned.

It is very common in dropsies of the chest or lungs to have the difficulty
of breathing relieved by copious sweats, flowing from the head and neck