V. _Hard labour_, or exercise in such a degree as to produce fatigue, have, in several instances, cured the dropsy. A dispensary patient, in this city, was cured of this disease by sawing wood. And a patient in an ascites under my care in the Pennsylvania hospital, had his belly reduced seven inches in circumference in one day, by the labour of carrying wood from the yard into the hospital. A second patient belonging to the Philadelphia dispensary was cured by walking to Lancaster, 66 miles from the city, in the middle of winter. The efficacy of travelling in this disease, in cold weather, is taken notice of by Dr. Monroe, who quotes a case from Dr. Holler, of a French merchant, who was cured of a dropsy by a journey from Paris to England, in the winter season. It would seem, that in these two cases, the _cold_ co-operated as a sedative with the fatigue produced by labour or exercise, in reducing the tone of the arterial system. VI. _Low diet._ I have heard of a woman who was cured of a dropsy by eating nothing but boiled beans for three weeks, and drinking nothing but the water in which they had been boiled. Many other cases of the good effects of low diet in dropsies are to be found in the records of medicine. VII. _Thirst._ This cruel remedy acts by debilitating the system in two ways: 1st, by abstracting the stimulus of distention; and, 2dly, by preventing a supply of fresh water to replace that which is discharged by the ordinary emunctories of nature. VIII. _Fasting._ An accidental circumstance, related by sir John Hawkins, in the life of Dr. Johnson, first led me to observe the good effects of fasting in the dropsy. If the fact alluded to stood alone under the present head of this essay, it would be sufficient to establish the existence of too much action, and the efficacy of debilitating remedies in certain dropsies. I am the more disposed to lay a good deal of stress upon this fact, as it was the clue which conducted me out of the labyrinth of empirical practice, in which I had been bewildered for many years, and finally led me to adopt the principles and practice which I am now endeavouring to establish. The passage which contains this interesting fact is as follows: "A few days after (says sir John) he [meaning Dr. Johnson] sent for me, and informed me, that he had discovered in himself the symptoms of a dropsy, and, indeed, his very much increased bulk, and the swollen appearance of his legs, seemed to indicate no less. It was on Thursday that I had this conversation with him; in the course thereof he declared, that he intended to devote the whole of the next day to _fasting_, humiliation, and such other devotional exercises as became a man in his situation. On the Saturday following I made him a visit, and, upon entering his room, I observed in his countenance such a serenity as indicated, that some remarkable crisis of his disease had produced a change in his feelings. He told me