However trifling these complaints may appear, they compose a large class of the diseases of a numerous body of people. Hitherto, the persons afflicted by them have been too generally abandoned to the care of empirics, either because the disease was considered as beneath the notice of physicians, or because they were unable to cure it. I would rather ascribe it to the latter, than to the former cause, for pride has no natural fellowship with the profession of medicine. The difficulty of curing sore legs has been confessed by physicians in every country. As far as my observations have extended, I am disposed to ascribe this difficulty to the uniform and indiscriminate mode of treating them, occasioned by the want of a theory which shall explain their proximate cause. I shall attempt in a few pages to deliver one, which, however imperfect, will, I hope, lay a foundation for more successful inquiries upon this subject hereafter. I shall begin my observations upon this disease, by delivering and supporting the following propositions. I. SORE LEGS are induced by general debility. This I infer from the occupations and habits of the persons who are most subject to them. They are day-labourers, and sailors, who are in the habit of lifting great weights; also washer-women, and all other persons, who pass the greatest part of their time upon their feet. The blood-vessels and muscular fibres of the legs are thus overstretched, by which means either a rupture, or such a languid action in the vessels is induced, as that an accidental wound from any cause, even from the scratch of a pin, or the bite of a mosquito, will not easily heal. But labourers, sailors, and washer-women are not the only persons who are afflicted with sore legs. Hard drinkers of every rank and description are likewise subject to them. Where strong drink, labour, and standing long on the feet are united, they more certainly dispose to sore legs, than when they act separately. In China, where the labour which is performed by brutes in other countries, is performed by men, varices on the legs are very common among the labouring people. Perhaps, the reason why the debility is induced in the legs produces varices instead of ulcers in these people, may be owing to their not adding the debilitating stimulus of strong drink to that of excessive labour. It is not extraordinary that the debility produced by intemperance in drinking ardent spirits, should appear first in the lower extremities. The debility produced by intemperance in the use of wine, makes its first appearance in the form of gout, in the same part of the body. The gout, it is true, discovers itself most frequently in pain only, but there are cases in which it has terminated in ulcers, and even mortification on the legs. II. Sore legs are connected with a morbid state of the whole system. This I infer, 1. From the causes which induce them, all of which act more or less upon every part of the body.