right as to the nature of hydrocephalus, that it is at first
dependant upon inflammation, or congestion; and that the water in the
ventricles is a consequence, and not a cause of the disease; the
curative intentions ought to be extremely different in the first and
the last stages.

It happens very rarely that I am called to patients at the beginning,
but in two instances wherein I was called at first, the patients were
cured by repeated topical bleedings, vomits, and purges.

Some years ago I mentioned these opinions, and the success of the
practice resulting from them, to Dr. Quin, now physician at Dublin.
That gentleman had lately taken his degree, and had chosen
hydrocephalus for the subject of his thesis in the year 1779. In this
very ingenious essay, which he gave me the same morning, I was much
pleased to find that the author had not only held the same ideas
relative to the nature of the disease, but had also confirmed them by
dissections.

In the year 1781, another case in the first stage demanded my
attention. The reader is referred back to Case LXIX for the
particulars.

I have not yet been able to determine whether the Digitalis can or
cannot be used with advantage in the second stage of the
hydrocephalus. In Case XXXIII. the symptoms of death were at hand; in
Case LXIX. the practice, though successful, was too complicated, and
in Case CLI. the medicine was certainly stopped too soon.

When we consider what enormous quantities of mercury may be used in
this complaint, without affecting the salivary glands, it seems
probable that other parts may be equally insensible to the action of
their peculiar stimuli, and therefore that the Digitalis ought to be
given in much larger doses in this, than in other diseases.

HYDROTHORAX.

Sec. 18. Under this name I also include the dropsy of the pericardium.

The intermitting pulse, and pain in the arms, sufficiently distinguish
this disease from asthma, and from anasarcous lungs.

It is very universally cured by the Digitalis.

Sec. 19. I lately met with two cases which had been considered and
treated as angina pectoris. They both appeared to me to be cases of
hydrothorax. One subject was a clergyman, whose strength had been so
compleatly exhausted by the continuance of the disease, and the
attempts to relieve it, that he did not survive many days. The other
was a lady, whose time of life made me suspect effusion. I directed
her