In a letter which I received from Dr. John Pennington, dated Edinburgh, August 3, 1790, I was favoured with the following communication. "Since the conversation I had with you on the subject of the dropsy, I feel more and more inclined to adopt your opinion. I can furnish you with a fact which I learned from a Danish sailor, on my passage to this country, which is much in favour of your doctrine. A sailor in an ascites, fell off the end of the yard into the sea; the weather being calm, he was taken up unhurt, but, to use the sailor's own words, who told me the story, he was _frightened half to death_, and as soon as he was taken out of the water, he discharged a gallon of urine or more. A doctor on board ascribed this large evacuation to sea bathing, and accordingly ordered the man to be dipped in the sea every morning, much against his will, for, my informant adds, that he had not forgotten his fall, and that in four weeks he was perfectly well. I think this fact can only be explained on your principles. The sedative operation of _fear_ was, no doubt, the cause of his cure." There is an account of an ascites being cured by a fall from an open chaise, recorded in the third volume of the Medical Memoirs, by M. Lowdell. I have heard of a complete recovery from dropsy, having suddenly followed a fall from a horse. In both these cases, the cures were probably the effects of fear. Dr. Hall, of York-town, in Pennsylvania, informed me, that he had been called to visit a young woman of 19 years of age, who had taken all the usual remedies for ascites without effect. He at once proposed to her the operation of tapping. To this she objected, but so great was the _fear_ of this operation, which the proposal of it suddenly excited in her mind, that it brought on a plentiful discharge of urine, which in a few days perfectly removed her disease. On the 27th of August, 1790, I visited a gentlewoman in this city with the late Dr. Jones, in an ascites. We told her for the first time, that she could not be relieved without being tapped. She appeared to be much terrified upon hearing our opinion, and said that she would consider of it. I saw her two days afterwards, when she told me, with a smile on her countenance, that she hoped she should get well without tapping, for that she had discharged two quarts of water in the course of the day after we had advised her to submit to that operation. For many days before, she had not discharged more than two or three gills in twenty-four hours. The operation, notwithstanding, was still indicated, and she submitted to be tapped a few days afterwards.