Occasionally cases are met with in which the œdema is peculiarly localized and fugitive. If attention is directed to the heart, a bruit and other evidences of dilatation of the organ and of arterial relaxation, just as in the first case, are discovered. If the lungs be examined, one may or may not discover signs of single or double hydrothorax, although, probably, not to a very great extent. The lungs themselves are healthy. On getting him out of bed it is found that the patient can hardly walk; partly from breathlessness, partly on account of mechanical interference by the dropsy with the movements of the legs, partly, perhaps, from some degree of paresis. He has ankle-drop possibly; and, if firm pressure be brought to bear on the calf muscles through the œdema, signs of hyper-æsthesia of the muscles may or may not be elicited. Knee-jerk is probably absent, and there is numbness of the shins and fingertips. The tongue is clean, the appetite fair, and there is no fever. But there may be complaint of præcordial distress and even pain, and, as this is aggravated by a full meal
Fig. 76.—Dropsical beriberi. (Bentley.)
