Physical and literary. 2^7^ 



We not only meet daily with inflances 

 of ruptures of arteries from violent ftrain- 

 ings of the body, and have feveral hifto- 

 ries related of aneurifms proceeding from 

 fuch cafes, but find, that the large veins, 

 and even the heart itfelf, may be burft. 

 In difTeding a body at Paris, with Dr 

 Drummond Phyfician to the Royal Infii> 

 mary at Edinburgh, we found the peri- 

 cardium vaflly diftended with blood; 

 and, upon fearching for the vefTel which 

 had difcharged it, found a hole in the 

 right ventricle of the heart, near the a- 

 pex, capable of admitting the little finger; 

 but we could not afterwards learn the 

 hiftory of the perfon. On the 28th of 

 Odlober 1 749, a foldier of the regiment 

 of dragoon guards, about twenty-three 

 years of age, of a flrong make, and feem- 

 ingly in good health, after ailifting to 

 lift fome very heavy boxes into a wag- 

 gon that was going from Berwick to 

 Belford, was feized with a kind of a 

 fit, attended with a giddinefs, ficknefs, 

 and incUnation to vomit, and was imme- 

 diately 



