Dr. Willis has also observed, that the sudor anglicanus which appeared in England, in 1483, and continued till 1551, was in some respects similar to the diabetes; and as Dr. Caius, who saw this disease, mentions the viscidity, as well as the quantity of these sweats, and adds, that the extremities were often cold, when the internal parts were burnt up with heat and thirst, with great and speedy emaciation and debility:  there is great reason to believe, that the fluids were absorbed from the cells of the body by the cellular and cystic branches of the lymphatics, and poured on the skin by the retrograde motions of the cutaneous ones.

Sydenham has recorded, in the stationary fever of the year 1685, the viscid sweats flowing from the head, which were probably from the same source as those in the sweating plague above mentioned.

It is very common in dropsies of the chest or lungs to have the difficulty of breathing relieved by copious sweats, flowing from the head and neck.  Mr. P. about 50 years of age, had for many weeks been afflicted with anasarca of his legs and thighs, attended with difficulty of breathing; and had repeatedly been relieved by squill, other bitters, and chalybeates.—­One night the difficulty of breathing became so great, that it was thought he must have expired; but so copious a sweat came out of his head and neck, that in a few hours some pints, by estimation, were wiped off from those parts, and his breath was for a time relieved.  This dyspnoea and these sweats recurred at intervals, and after some weeks he ceased to exist.  The skin of his head and neck felt cold to the hand, and appeared pale at the time these sweats flowed so abundantly; which is a proof, that they were produced by an inverted motion of the absorbents of those parts:  for sweats, which are the consequence of an increased action of the sanguiferous system, are always attended with a warmth of the skin, greater than is natural, and a more florid colour; as the sweats from exercise, or those that succeed the cold fits of agues.  Can any one explain how these partial sweats should relieve the difficulty of breathing in anasarca, but by supposing that the pulmonary branch of absorbents drank up the fluid in the cavity of the thorax, or in the cells of the lungs, and threw it on the skin, by the retrograde motions of the cutaneous branch? for, if we could suppose, that the increased action of the cutaneous glands or capillaries poured upon the skin this fluid, previously absorbed from the lungs; why is not the whole surface of the body covered with sweat? why is not the skin warm?  Add to this, that the sweats above mentioned were clammy or glutinous, which the condensed perspirable matter is not; whence it would seem to have been a different fluid from that of common perspiration.

Dr. Dobson, of Liverpool, has given a very ingenious explanation of the acid sweats, which he observed in a diabetic patient—­he thinks part of the chyle is secreted by the skin, and afterwards undergoes an acetous fermentation.—­Can the chyle get thither, but by an inverted motion of the cutaneous lymphatics? in the same manner as it is carried to the bladder, by the inverted motions of the urinary lymphatics.  Medic.  Observat. and Enq.  London, vol. v.