A similar application of hot water has been attempted at a distance from Bath; but whether it arises from the heat employed being too low, or that the Bath waters derive, in part, their virtues from the mineral im-pregnation, is uncertain; the effects, however, have not answered the expectations of the practitioner. The warm sea water bath promises to be very useful, and to this a pump may be readily adapted. If the suppuration proceeds, notwithstanding every

6 M 2 effort, we have already remarked that nature must effect a cure, if the patient ever attains it; and the plan has been sufficiently detailed.

Hippocrates de Morbus Internis, cap. 54 - 58; Caelius Aurelianus de Morbis Chronicis, lib. v. cap. 1; De Haen de Morbo Coxario; Falconer's Memoirs of the Medical Society of London, vol. vi.

Morbus Gallicus Indicus. See Lues venerea.

Morbus Hungaricus. See Amphemehina Hungarica.

Morbus strangulatorius, truculentus infantum. See Suffocatio Strid1a.

Morbus niger. The black disease, melaena of Sauvages, melaina nosos of Hippocrates, of which he describes two kinds. In the first the patient vomits black bile, sometimes bloody and sour; a thin saliva, or green bile. The acrimony of the fluid occasionally inflames the mouth, and its acidity affects the teeth in the usual way. Vomiting relieves, but flatulence affects the patient when empty, and a great load is felt after eating. A slow fever, head ach, dim sight, heaviness in the legs, and blackness in the skin, are common symptoms. Frequent cathartics, with whey, milk, and other diluent drinks, are only necessary. The second kind consists of a discharge of concrete blood of a blackish red colour, mixed with a large quantity of insipid, acid, or viscid phlegm, thrown up by vomit. This evacuation is generally preceded by a pungent tensive pain in both hypochondria, and the appearance of the disease is attended with anxiety, a compressive pain in the praecordia, and fainting, which last is more frequent, and more violent, when the blood evacuated is fetid and corrupt.

In modern authors, every dark coloured discharge has this appellation, and little care is taken to distinguish its source. A black discharge may be either bile or blood. Each is distinguished by the colour when diluted, for bile is of a dark yellow, and blood is red. But in worn-out constitutions the bile will not always assume on dilution the yellow hue; and in this case the black matter consists of dark flakes, or sometimes a dark pitchy matter is discharged. The latter appearance is not indeed a diagnostic mark, for it is the colour of the meconium in young children, and is the substance often discharged after long continued constipation.

When these distinctions are kept in view, the practice is easy. The discharge of blood is either an active or a passive haemorrhage, generally passive, and in neither case highly dangerous. Indeed we have seen very considerable discharges of Wood by stool, from strains in the young and active, yield to nitre, to opiates with occasional mild laxatives. The passive haemorrhages require astringents, with the vitriolic acid. The blood in these cases flows from different arteries, and its source requires no variation of practice.

When the bile is dark, a previous suppression has usually occurred; and the discharge, which is essentially necessary, must be regulated by the strength of the patient. The pitch-like bile, or perhaps the grumous blood, requires also to be evacuated; and the best medicine for each purpose, if the strength of the patient will admit, is calomel. This medicine, were we to revive the term, we should style the true cholagogue. But the pitchy and the flaky bile, in worn-out constitutions, must be gradually discharged, and the strength supported by wine, by nourishing diet, by aromatics, and by any thing but astringents.

Pains are uncommon; and if they occur, must be obviated by fomentations, and by opiates. They are truly spasmodic, for inflammatory pains only attend inflammation of the membranes of the liver.

The discharge from piles sometimes resembles the melaena; but the pain, at the lower part of the rectum, the fulness and tension, sufficiently distinguish them.

See Hippocrates, lib. ii. De Morbis, sect. v.; Hoffman, Rationalis Medicina Systema; Edinburgh Medical Commentaries, vol. iv.; London Medical Journal, vol. i. p. 10.