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394 ESOTERIC ANTHROPOLOGY.
Over the whole body, but especially
in the lower ex
tremities, there may be edema or anasarca, dropsy of
the flesh or areolar tissue. This occurs in consump
tion, or from pressure or exhaustion.
Dropsy of the brain is nearly hopeless ; that of the
heart almost as bad ; the pleura reabsorbs more readily;
ascites is sometimes cured ; encysted dropsy yields to
tapping, occasionally; and edema ceases when its spe
cial cause has disappeared. On the whole, the prog
nosis is unfavorable. If there is a capital stock of
vitality, we may so invigorate the system, as to pro
mote absorption any where. The treatment is to
invigorate the system, promote the circulation, and
the skin. I have seen a course
especially strengthen
of alternate wet-sheet and blanket packings do won
ders.
Diabetes is a large flow of urine, of either a natural
or morbid character. In the latter case it contains
sugar formed by some unnatural state of the digestive
function. It is curable, in either case, by strict vege
table diet, and the wet-sheet and blanket pack, with
other general hygienic regulations. Cases that have
resisted the elite of the medical profession in this coun
try, have yielded to this treatment.
Cancer is an intense concentration of morbid matter
and action—of intense malignancy. I believe it to be a
constitutional disease, and often hereditary. It attacks
the breadt and uterus iu women, the testicles in men,
and the tongue, rectum, stomach, etc., in both sexes.
Surgical operations
are seldom effectual. I know of
but one cure —the strictest diet, verging oh starvation
—the purest and most invigorating life, and a course of