(seq. 25)

And this is the matter to be insisted on, because I think it
leads to great faults in practice. It has seemed to me that
a patient's recovery, & comfort, has been better consulted by
attending in the first instance to the general state of his health,
than by an eagerness to get rid of the water. And where nothing
particular is indicated, the Peruvian bark, & bitters, & tonics,
assisted by proper diet, & gentle exercise, will often prove be-
-neficial, if not by lessening the complaint, at least by rendering
the patient better able to support it. At the same time, some
gentle physic every day, or stronger purgatives taken twice
a week, may in some degree reduce the diseased burden, or
retard its rapid increase, without unnecessarily weakening
the animal powers, & thereby adding to the calamity, which
it is our object to remove. In this consideration of a difficult
subject I am supported by the authority of Dr Haen, whose
observations, drawn from ample experience in a large public
hospital, are less available, & therefore less known than they
deserve, but for from the want of order & arrangement. He
says - " Hydropem, & ascitem, & intercutem, curatum vidimus
" in cancrosa fæmina, cui Cortex adverius cancrum dabatur. Can-
"-cer quidem non curabatur; sed vasa corporis cortice roborata
"omnen aquarum colluviem alvo & urinis expulerunt. Quid
"ergo impedit quo minus hydropis, sine viscerum interiorum
"scirrho obtinents, curam Cortice tuto tentemus? Duplex sane
"causa nos eo adigit; altera egregius effectus in ipso morbo; altera,
"ejus dem ad morbi proegumenam causam haud raro tollendam
"exploratissima virtus." (Vol. 2. p. 40) In another place the same
author observes - "Quod Duverneyus et Nuckius & Targionius
"mox, idem ego, idem mecum complures testantur omnes scilicet