I. There is a species of atrophy, which has not been well understood; when the absorbent vessels of the stomach and intestines have been long inured to the stimulus of too much spirituous liquor, they at length, either by the too sudden omission of fermented or spirituous potation, or from the gradual decay of nature, become in a certain degree paralytic; now it is observed in the larger muscles of the body, when one side is paralytic, the other is more frequently in motion, owing to the less expenditure of sensorial power in the paralytic limbs; so in this case the other part of the absorbent system acts with greater force, or with greater perseverance, in consequence of the paralysis of the lacteals; and the body becomes greatly emaciated in a small time.

I have seen several patients in this disease, of which the following are the circumstances. 1.  They were men about fifty years of age, and had lived freely in respect to fermented liquors. 2.  They lost their appetite to animal food. 3.  They became suddenly emaciated to a great degree. 4.  Their skins were dry and rough. 5.  They coughed and expectorated with difficulty a viscid phlegm. 6.  The membrane of the tongue was dry and red, and liable to become ulcerous.

The inability to digest animal food, and the consequent distaste to it, generally precedes the dropsy, and other diseases, which originate from spirituous potation.  I suppose when the stomach becomes inirritable, that there is at the same time a deficiency of gastric acid; hence milk seldom agrees with these patients, unless it be previously curdled, as they have not sufficient gastric acid to curdle it; and hence vegetable food, which is itself acescent, will agree with their stomachs longer than animal food, which requires more of the gastric acid for its digestion.

In this disease the skin is dry from the increased absorption of the cutaneous lymphatics, the fat is absorbed from the increased absorption of the cellular lymphatics, the mucus of the lungs is too viscid to be easily spit up by the increased absorption of the thinner parts of it, the membrana sneideriana becomes dry, covered with hardened mucus, and at length becomes inflamed and full of aphthae, and either these sloughs, or pulmonary ulcers, terminate the scene.

II.  The immediate cause of dropsy is the paralysis of some other branches of the absorbent system, which are called lymphatics, and which open into the larger cavities of the body, or into the cells of the cellular membrane; whence those cavities or cells become distended with the fluid, which is hourly secreted into them for the purpose of lubricating their surfaces.  As is more fully explained in No. 5. of the next Section.