To the deficiency, absence, or interruption of hæmorrhoids are attributed chiefly all those obstructions of the abdominal viscera which lead to dropsy and other fatal diseases. The waters of Wisbaden are represented as having the normal or salutary power of restraining piles, when in excess—encouraging them when languid—and reproducing them when accidentally arrested. HYPOCHONDRIASIS is one of the grand forms in which suppressed hæmorrhoids harasses the patient for years, according to the continental pathology. “How often,” says Dr. Peez, “does it, however, happen, that an abdominal disease exclusively confined to the nervous system, suddenly changes its character, preferably affecting the bloodvessels, and thus is transformed into an active hemorrhoïdal disorder! “I have had occasion to observe the case of a husbandman, who had been suffering the torments of hypochondria for some years; he was emaciated and ill fed. His means did not allow him to attempt a radical cure, and he applied only from time to time for my assistance, when his sufferings were most painful. In spring 1821 he was suddenly seized with palpitations of the heart, and when these ceased, his pulse continued for some months to be full and hard, as in the case of fever. Discerning the character of his disorder, I made him come to Wisbaden. Here he took half-baths, drank the water in copious doses, and was cupped in his legs several times. In twelve days the hemorrhoïds declared themselves in the usual shape and delivered him from his melancholy, anxiety, and oppression of the stomach, which had tormented him so long.” 196. Dr. Peez informs us that the sequences of tropical diseases are radically cured by the Wisbaden springs. “Among the consequences of these endemic diseases of the Indies we must reckon: tumefactions of the liver, and the spleen, which frequently are encomous, as well as other tumors in the cavity of the abdomen: swellings and obstructions of the intestinal glands (which frequently also are the products of malignant cutaneous diseases, peculiar to the torrid zone), obstinate jaundice, spasms of the stomach, accompanied with a vomiting of food. “The English and Dutch physicians have these many years been in the habit of sending patients of this class to Carlsbad or Wisbaden, after those of the former first had tried Cheltenham to no purpose; and these two springs produce, in the above mentioned diseases, an effect really wonderful.” 198.