NATURAL 
scumstances of her case that the 
ereader has seen mentioned in the 
»preceding accounts. But Mr. Mai- 
den, who delayed this inquiry till 
the day before he intended to leave 
-Paris, having been able to remain 
with her only a few minutes, the 
‘truth of the facts still rested chiefly 
on the assertion of the woman her- 
self, and nothing less than the ocular 
testimony of some intelligent per- 
son, whose accuracy might be fully 
relied on, seemed sufficient to es- 
tablish their authenticity. Such a 
testimony has, at length, been ob- 
tained through the obliging exer- 
tions of M. Souville, Physician at 
Calais, and M. Parmentier, Apothe- 
cary Major of the Royal Hospital 
of Invalids at Paris, at whose re- 
-quest M. Brougniart, who is well 
‘known to the Editor of this work as 
a very accurate and ingenious stu- 
dent of physic, readily undertook 
the investigation of the case. The 
following papers relative to this 
subject, with which we shall close 
our account of the case, will show 
the satisfactory manner in which 
‘the facis in question have been 
ascertained: 
Extract of a Letter from M. Par- 
mentier, Apothecary Major of the 
Royal Hospital of Invalids, &c. to 
M. Souville, Physician at Calais, 
and Member of the Royal Medi- 
cal Society at Paris, &c. Dated 
Paris, Oct. 27, 1791. 
** T have delayed, Sir, doing my- 
self the honour of answering your 
letter till I should be furnished with 
ahe particulars of the case Dr. Sim- 
mons has requested of us; and I 
thought I could not do better than 
to request M. Brougniart to procure 
them for him. You will judge 
from the inclosed papers how well 
POL 
HISTORY. 
he has acquitted himself of a com- 
mission which I myself should have 
readily undertaken, had I not had 
reason to bope that it would be still 
more completely executed by pby- 
sicians who, though young, are good 
observers.” 
389 
Extract of a Letter from M. Brong- 
niart, Student of Physic at the 
Royal Hospital of Invalids at Pa- 
ris, to Dr. Simmons ; dated Paris, 
Oct. 25, 1791. 
“You wrote lately, Sir, to M. 
Souville, for the parpose of procur- 
ing some authentic information re- 
lative to a woman at Paris who 
drinks a great quantity of water. 
You expressed to him a wish that 
some person, whose accuracy could 
be relied on, might be engaged to 
visit this woman, and see with his 
own eyes the truth of this fact. M. 
Souville wrote to M. Parmentier, 
and sent him your letter. M. Par- 
mentier, with whom I have the good 
fortune to be intimately connected, 
knowing how much I wished for 
an opportunity of making you some 
return for your kindness tome dur- 
ing my stav in England, did me the 
favour to put into my hands your 
letter, and at the same time en- 
gaged me to make the inquiries you 
desired. 
** Being persuaded that whenever 
the object is to ascertain a fact, two 
persons observe better than one, and 
must necessarily inspire more con- 
fidence,—I communicated your let- 
ter to a society who meet for scien- 
tific purposes, and of which I am a 
member. The society joined with 
me a young physician for the pur- 
pose of assisting me in the inquiry; 
and we saw together, in my apart~ 
ments, the woman in question. 
Several other members of the same 
Bb3 society 
