Among the ordinary predisposing and exciting causes of the inflammation which produces hydrothorax, Dr. A. mentions a certain congestive or plethoric state of the circulation, which is brought on in some persons of particular habits, by indulging in the pleasures of the table, and taking little exercise. These cases are analogous to those occurring in the brain, and giving rise, by rupture, to a sanguineous apoplexy, or, by arterial reaction, inducing an effusion of serum. Dr. A. next proceeds to the subject of _ascites_, the symptoms of which he remarks are at first so obscure, that the disease is sometimes with difficulty detected. The remote causes of ascites may be either symptomatic or idiopathic, and either local or general. When symptomatic, it may be seated in some diseased viscus, as the liver, spleen, or in the mesenteric glands, &c. "To produce, however, a dropsical effusion into the abdomen from this cause, it is necessary that the disease of this viscus should be making progress; for, in its indolent state, or, in other words, if inflammation be not present in it, it is incapable from its mere bulk, as is commonly but erroneously supposed, of producing this effect." "Nor does the serous discharge always take place into the abdomen, in every case where these organs are morbidly affected, but only where their peritoneal covering participates in the disease; for the chronic inflammation in those cases, where it occasions ascites, does so by extending from the cellular tissue of the internal structure of the organ, to the serous tissue investing in it." "When ascites is an idiopathic affection, it may proceed from all the common causes of inflammation. The most frequent cause is cold, and which may act either locally or generally. When in the latter mode, the ascites is usually combined with anasarca, and the disorder generally comes on suddenly, and has a rapid progress. The vascular system is excited, and there is more than usual thirst; the blood when drawn exhibits the buffy appearance; and the urine, when subjected to heat, is found to coagulate strongly, from the large quantity of serum contained in it. In some of the severer cases, the effusion into the abdomen takes place very suddenly, and yet, by a copious bleeding the disease may be at once arrested, and the water be afterwards absorbed."