4. From the symptoms of tonic dropsy which have been mentioned, it follows, that the distinction of apoplexy into serous and sanguineous, affords no rational indication for a difference in the mode of treating that disease. If an effusion of serum in the thorax, bowels, or limbs, produce a hard and full pulse, it is reasonable to suppose that the same symptom will be produced by the effusion of serum in the brain. But the dissections collected by Lieutaud[45] place this opinion beyond all controversy. They prove that the symptoms of great and feeble morbid action, as they appear in the pulse, follow alike the effusion of serum and blood in the brain. This fact will admit of an important application to the disease, which is to be the subject of the next inquiry. [45] Historia Anatomica Medica, vol. II. 5. From the influence which has been described, of the different states of action of the arterial system, upon the lymphatic vessels, in dropsies, we are led to reject the indiscriminate use of bark, mercury, and salt water, in the scrophula. When the action of the arteries is weak, those remedies are proper; but when an opposite state of the arterial system occurs, and, above all, when scrophulous tumours are attended with inflammatory ulcers, stimulating medicines of all kinds are hurtful. By alternating the above remedies with a milk and vegetable diet, according to the tonic, or atonic states of the arterial system, I have succeeded in the cure of a case of scrophula, attended by large ulcers in the inguinal glands, which had for several years resisted the constant use of the three stimulating remedies which have been mentioned. 6. Notwithstanding I have supposed dropsies to be connected with a peculiar state of force in the blood-vessels, yet I have not ventured to assert, that dropsies may not exist from an exclusive affection of the exhaling and absorbing vessels. I conceive this to be as possible, as for a fever to exist from an exclusive affection of the arteries, or a hysteria from an exclusive affection of the nervous system. Nothing, however, can be said upon this subject, until physiology and pathology have taught us more of the structure and diseases of the lymphatic vessels. Nor have I ventured further to assert, that there are not medicines which may act specifically upon the lymphatics, independently of the arteries. This I conceive to be as possible as for asaf[oe]tida to act chiefly upon the nerves, or ipecacuanha and jalap upon the alimentary canal, without affecting other parts of the system. Until such medicines are discovered, it becomes us to avail ourselves of the access to the lymphatics, which is furnished us through the medium of the arteries, by means of most of the remedies which have been mentioned.