tion. Spirituous applications used for repelling, milk from the breafts, injuries of the womb received by hard labours, or the violent extraction of the after-burthen, may likewise be productive of that complaint.

A fcirrhous tumor is generally fmall in its beginning and remains indolent for a time, without pain or apparent danger, but being irritated or disturbed by any of the causes from which it was originally produced, it is then liable to become painful and inflamed. It gradually grows larger and more irregular in figure, and at laft is affected with burning heat and pungent pains; the veins proceeding from it being fwelled, and of a blackish levid hue, fomewhat refembling the claws of a crab-fish, it is from thence called Cancer.

Every fcirrhus, when painful or inflamed, is apt to become malignant and degenerate into cancer, and this fatal change is most to be dreaded at the age of forty-five, or about the ceffation of the menfes, particularly

AN

larly in women of bad conftitutions, who have been irregular or obftructed; so that of twenty women affected with Cancers, fifteen of that number, have been generally found of an age between forty-five Alw mort n'

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and fifty.

The intemperate use of spirituous liquors,

the violent impreffion of anger, or the more

flow effects of melancholy, and continual

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anxiety of mind, all powerfully dispose the patient to fcirrhous or cancerous complaints; and therefore, old maids, nuns, or those who are inactive, and lead a folitary unfociable, and discontented life, have been ob ferved particularly fubject to such diseases.

· When a scirrhous tumor is irritated and begins to itch or grow red, with pain and

inflammation, the obstructed glandular

Lymph being then heated and difturbed, is changed into a dangerous animal poifon which having broke its inclosure and made way

through the fkin, corrodes the contiguous parts like aqua fortis and forms an ulcerated,

running

running fore or open cancer. So that the fame caufe which changes a fcirrhus into a cancer, may convert a concealed cancer into one which is open or ulcerated.

When the mafs of blood, the very fountain from which both life and health proceed, is unfortunately tainted with this poisonous fluid, the whole body is rendered difeafed, and the cancerous matter frequently fixes upon fome other glandular part; fo that what was at first only local, now becomes a univerfal malady, and like a peftilential blight, overspreads and lays wafte the conftitution.

1

Hence a flow fever attended with nightfweats, an habitual diarrhea, pain, and want of reft alternately confume the patient's ftrength. Clots of corrupted blood are discharged with exceffive pain and forcing down, and fometimes fluid blood in large quantities efcapes from the veffels corroded and eaten away by the extreme fharpness of the cancerous humor,

theba

Thus

Thus reduced to the extremeft weakness, and deftitute of hope, the lives in a long continued state of exquifite mifery, a prey to this cruel disease; 'till Death's benumbing opium composes her to final reft, and at once puts a period to her life and sufferings..

As no certain and infallible cure is yet known for a confirmed ulcerated cancer, which inevitably destroys the constitution: by vitiating the blood; the early extirpation of all fuch, fcirrhous tumors as are movést able under the fkin, and unconnected to any confiderable nerve or blood-veffel, is a practice which can never be too much recom.. mended, even where they may appear void of pain or danger; more particularly if they arise from external causes, and the constitu-. tion is otherwife good and found.

It is only by fuch means the patient can be effectually fecured from the danger of an incurable cancer, which would be re-. moved to no purpofe, when once the blood was tainted with its poifon, which like old

!

levens will produce a difeafed ferment, even after extirpation, fhould the least part of the cancer remain behind.

There are two circumftances of a very diftreffing nature, which attend fcirrhous, or cancerous tumors of the womb in particular; for inftance, their exiftence can feldom be discovered, with certainty, till too far advanced to admit of cure by medicines or regimen; and their extirpation is generally impoffible, when thus included in the cavity of the womb.p

2

Befides, fuch tumors, from the internal heat, and confinement of the cancerous difcharge, are much more violent in their fymptoms, and rapid in their progrefs, than those of the breasts or other parts; even fo as not only to erode, and destroy the womb itfelf, but extend to the contiguous parts. This fatal circumstance befel a celebrated Irish actress on the English ftage, whose fufferings