TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 125 
_ subjects who had been hanged, in whom several of the extensor mus- 
_ eles had been torn across, leaving an interspace containing extravasated 
_ blood; especially one stout, muscular man, in whom the right triceps, 
extensor cubiti, and both vasti interni, were completely ruptured; 
while, in tetanus, cholera, &c., the muscular fibres have been found 
_ completely or partially lacerated. And from these and various other 
_ instances on record, he is led to infer that such injuries are of more 
_ frequent occurrence than is generally imagined. 
Sir David Dickson also notices a case of transposition of the czecum, 
which was found in the left instead of the right inguinal region ; the 
_ colon ascending and descending on the same side; and a more recent 
_ dissection, where, instead of the ninth nerve on the right side giving 
_ off a descending branch, the eighth nerve supplied a compensating 
branch, having a similar termination and communications as the de- 
_ scendens noni on the left side, the origin and distribution of which 
were normal. 
The paper concludes with the history and post mortem appearances 
_ of three unusually interesting cases of dropsy. In one of them, a com- 
bination of ascites and hydrothorax, the patient was saved from im- 
‘pending dissolution, and his life prolonged twenty-five days, by the abs- 
_ traction of thirteen pints of fluid from the left cavity of the pleura. 
_ In another, the patient lived upwards of six months, during which the 
_ operation of paracentesis abdominis was performed fourteen times. 
_ P.S. The officer who recovered after having been twelve times 
tapped in 1833, (as noticed in the Medical and Chirurgical Journal 
for January, 1834,) continues in perfect health. 
_ Abstract of a Paper read before the Medical Section of the British As- 
sociation at Liverpool, on the Physical and Chemical Characters of 
Expectoration in different Diseases of the Lungs, with some Prelimi- 
nary Remarks on the Albuminous Principles existing in the Blood. 
By R.H. Brert, F.L.S., MRC. S., &e. 
_. The object of the present paper is an attempt to show that the phy- 
sical and more especially the chemical characters of expectorated mat- 
ter in different pectoral diseases may assist in diagnosis. The prelimi- 
_ nary remarks are on albuminous principles existing in the blood. The 
serum of blood is looked upon as containing in aqueous solution two if 
- not three modifications of albumen. The globular part, on the other 
_ hand, is regarded as made up of solid albumen or fibrine and colour- 
_ ing matter. The albumen in the serum appears to be, 1st, in an un- 
- combined state; 2ndly, in combination with an alkaline base; and 
' $rdly, in a state capable of undergoing spontaneous coagulation. The 
_ results obtained from a physical examination of sputa in different dis- 
eases of the lungs leads to the conclusion, that although, at certain 
_ stages in different pulmonary affections, the physical character of the 
_ sputa varies, still that in consequence of the complication produced by 
