Dr. Keil, in his Medicina Statica, found that he gained eighteen ounces from the moist air of one night; and Dr. Percival affirms, that one of his hands imbibed, after being well chafed, near an ounce and half of water, in a quarter of an hour. (Transact. of the College, London, vol. ii. p. 102.) Home’s Medic.  Facts, p. 2. sect. 3.

The pale urine in hysterical women, or which is produced by fear or anxiety, is a temporary complaint of this kind; and it would in reality be the same disease, if it was confirmed by habit.

6.  The purging stools, and pale urine, occasioned by exposing the naked body to cold air, or sprinkling it with cold water, originate from a similar cause; for the mouths of the cutaneous lymphatics being suddenly exposed to cold become torpid, and cease, or nearly cease, to act; whilst, by the sympathy above described, not only the lymphatics of the bladder and intestines cease also to absorb the more aqueous and saline part of the fluids secreted into them; but it is probable that these lymphatics invert their motions, and return the fluids, which were previously absorbed, into the intestines and bladder.  At the very instant that the body is exposed naked to the cold air, an unusual movement is felt in the bowels; as is experienced by boys going into the cold bath:  this could not occur from an obstruction of the perspirable matter, since there is not time, for that to be returned to the bowels by the course of the circulation.

There is also a chronic aqueous diarrhoea, in which the atmospheric moisture, drank up by the cutaneous and pulmonary lymphatics, is poured into the intestines, by the retrograde motions of the lacteals.  This disease is most similar to the aqueous diabetes, and is frequently exchanged for it:  a distinct instance of this is recorded by Benningerus, Cent. v.  Obs. 98. in which an aqueous diarrhoea succeeded an aqueous diabetes, and destroyed the patient.  There is a curious example of this, described by Sympson (De Re Medica)—­“A young man (says he) was seized with a fever, upon which a diarrhoea came on, with great stupor; and he refused to drink any thing, though he was parched up with excessive heat:  the better to supply him with moisture, I directed his feet to be immersed in cold water; immediately I observed a wonderful decrease of water in the vessel, and then an impetuous stream of a fluid, scarcely coloured, was discharged by stool, like a cataract.”

7.  There is another kind of diarrhoea, which has been called caeliaca; in this disease the chyle, drank up by the lacteals of the small intestines, is probably poured into the large intestines, by the retrograde motions of their lacteals:  as in the chyliferous diabetes, the chyle is poured into the bladder, by the retrograde motions of the urinary branch of absorbents.

The chyliferous diabetes, like this chyliferous diarrhoea, produces sudden atrophy; since the nourishment, which ought to supply the hourly waste of the body, is expelled by the bladder, or rectum:  whilst the aqueous diabetes, and the aqueous diarrhoea produce excessive thirst; because the moisture, which is obtained from the atmosphere, is not conveyed to the thoracic receptacle, as it ought to be, but to the bladder, or lower intestines; whence the chyle, blood, and whole system of glands, are robbed of their proportion of humidity.