7. If it should appear hereafter, that we have lessened the mortality of certain dropsies by the theory and practice which have been proposed, yet many cases of dropsy must still occur in which they will afford us no aid. The cases I allude to are dropsies from enclosing cysts, from the ossification of certain arteries, from schirri of certain viscera from large ruptures of exhaling or lymphatic vessels, from a peculiar and corrosive acrimony of the fluids, and, lastly, from an exhausted state of the whole system. The records of medicine furnish us with instances of death from each of the above causes. But let us not despair. It becomes a physician to believe, that there is no disease necessarily incurable; and that there exist in the womb of time, certain remedies for all those morbid affections, which elude the present limits of the healing art.
Footnotes:
[35] Medical Facts.
[36] Historical Essay on the Dropsy, p. 326.
[37] Treatise on the Dropsy.
[38] Treatise on the Lymphatics.
[39] Letter to Mr. Clare, p. 166.
[40] Letter to Mr. Clare, p. 117.
[41] Medical Memoirs, vol. II.
[42] Inquiry into the Causes and Cure of Pulmonary Consumption.