These are morbid conditions of the lymphatic glands (more especially those of the mesentery), which occur in the form of acute intumescence, associated with some degree of vascularity, and with loosening of the tissue. Although these conditions very probably differ considerably in their inner character, we are as yet but very imperfectly acquainted with their nature; and hence we are able to do little more than refer to them under the above designations, which are borrowed from the most striking appearances which they present. However nearly they may seem, at first sight, to be allied to hypertrophies, for which they are very generally mistaken, they are yet very different. Inasmuch as they are developed in an acute form, and always occur simultaneously with acute diseases, which are essentially manifested as dyscrasise and neuroses, we think they must be regarded as the localization of a general process of disease, and that the structure on which the increased volume of the gland depends is of a specific character. This circumstance forms the basis of the indication correctly deduced from these appearances, that they cannot be regarded as pre-existing developments connected with a chronic anomaly of the general condition of the organism, but must rather be considered to refer to an acute dyscrasia. On this account we have noticed them next in order to typhous inflammations of the lymphatic glands. They commonly, or at all events most strikingly, affect the mesenteric glands; and here, as in typhus the follicular apparatus of the intestine is almost invariably diseased in a similar manner.

If we pass over the swelling of the glands observed in Asiatic cholera, and which is explained provisionally at all events, by the tumultuous hyperaemia and formation of products in the whole intestinal apparatus, we may reckon the above described forms of glandular intumescence as characteristic of acute exanthemata, such as scarlet fever and variola, and of acute convulsions, such as epilepsy, tetanus, and trismus, both in children and adults. They are further observed in numerous dyscrasic, febrile, and more or less genuine typhoid conditions, and are manifested during life by a complication of symptoms, and after death by a combination of anatomical alterations.

We do not think that we are in error in reference to the above observations, although, as is obvious, everything relating to this subject is still merely conjectural.