§ 6. If existing alone, (i. e.) without accompanying anasarca, is in children curable; in adults generally incurable by medicines. Tapping may be used here with better chance for success than in more complicated dropsies. Sometimes cured by vomiting.
ASCITES and ANASARCA.
§ 7. Incurable if dependant upon irremediably diseased viscera, or on a gouty constitution, so debilitated, that the gouty paroxysms no longer continue to be formed.
In every other situation the disease yields to diuretics and tonics.
ASCITES, ANASARCA, and HYDROTHORAX.
§ 8. Under this complication, though the symptoms admit of relief, the restoration of the constitution can hardly be hoped for.
ASTHMA.
§ 9. The true spasmodic asthma, a rare disease—is not relieved by Digitalis.
§ 10. In the greater part of what are called asthmatical cases, the real disease is anasarca of the lungs, and is generally to be cured by diuretics. (See [§ 1].) This is almost always combined with some swelling of the legs.
§ 11. There is another kind of asthma, in which change of posture does not much affect the patient. I believe it to be caused by an infarction of the lungs. It is incurable by diuretics; but it is often accompanied with a degree of anasarca, and so far it admits of relief.