the
tympany; and in which a fluctuation can be readily perceived by applying
one hand expanded on one side, and striking the tumour on the other.

Effusions of water into large cavities, as into that of the abdomen or
thorax, or into the ventricules of the brain or pericardium, are more
difficult to be reabsorbed, than the effusion of fluids into the cellular
membrane; because one part of this extensive sponge-like system of cells,
which connects all the solid parts of the body, may have its power of
absorption impaired, at the same time that some other part of it may still
retain that power, or perhaps possess it in an increased degree; and as all
these cells communicate with each other, the fluid, which abounds in one
part of it, can be transferred to another, and thus be reabsorbed into the
circulation.

In the ascites, cream of tartar has sometimes been attended with success; a
dram or two drams are given every hour in a morning till it operates, and
is to be repeated for several days; but the operation of tapping is
generally applied to at last. Dr. Sims, in the Memoirs of the Medical
Society of London, Vol. III. has lately proposed, what he believes to be a
more successful method of performing this operation, by making a puncture
with a lancet in the scar of the navel, and leaving it to discharge itself
gradually for several days, without introducing a canula, which he thinks
injurious both on account of the too sudden emission of the fluid, and the
danger of wounding or stimulating the viscera. This operation I have twice
known performed with less inconvenience, and I believe with more benefit to
the patient, than the common method.

After the patient has been tapped, some have tried injections into the
cavity of the abdomen, but hitherto I believe with ill event. Nor are
experiments of this kind very promising of success. First because the
patients are generally much debilitated, most frequently by spirituous
potation, and have generally a disease of the liver, or of other viscera.
And secondly, because the quantity of inflammation, necessary to prevent
future secretion of mucus into the cavity of the abdomen, by uniting the
peritoneum with the intestines or mesentery, as happens in the cure of the
hydrocele, would I suppose generally destroy the patient, either
immediately, or by the consequence of such adhesions.

This however is not the case in respect to the dropsy of the ovarium, or in
the hydrocele.