i:60 ' Speedy Decomposition of IFater 



To Dr. Befijamm Rush. 



SIR, 



I regret that business of an indispensable nature pre- 

 vented iiic from being more particular in my communica- 

 tion. I drew it up iu a hurry, inlcnding- to transcribe it, 

 and insert such other notes as would throw light on the 

 case ; but being called out u few hours before the post set 

 out from this place, I was obliged to forward the counuu- 

 nication in the manner in which you received it. 



71ie part of the body of my patient on which the wound 

 was inflicted was a little above the union, of the sokcus and 

 gfistrocncmius muscles, which fonn the tendo-acbillis. The 

 interval between the time of his being bitten and the attack 

 of the fever was twenty-four days. 



He was, I was told, dull and solitary a few days previous 

 to the attack. A few minutes before it, his friends found 

 him two hundred yards from the house, apparently in a 

 deep study. He has informed me, since his recovery, that 

 he had a sliiiht pain in the wound, attended with itching, 

 and an uneasuicss in the inguinal gland, several days before 

 the fever. 



He refused to swallow liquids, and the sight of water 

 threw him into a convulsive agitation. 



With regard to the appearances of the blood drawn, I 

 am sorry to inform you, that after it became cold I did not 

 examine it. 



I am, sir, yours, Sec. 



Bent Cieek, Virginia, ROBEIIT BURTON. 



September 18, 1803. 



XXXIX. Hints respecting a sptedij Decomposition of JVater 

 hj Means of Galranism. By Mr. William Wilson. 



5/r !; it 

 fhMr.nUoch. 



SIR, London, August 22, 1805. 



x\t a time like the present, when there is every appear- 

 ance of some important discoveries iu chemistry being mad6 

 by the 'help'of Galvanism, -any experiment connected with 

 this subject that is not generally known (aiid especially such 

 as relate" to' the dcTcomposition of water, and that in a more 

 rapid n)anncr than is usually done by Galvanism) must be 

 " acceptable to persons engaged in this branch of sx;lence. I , J 

 therefore lake the liberty of troubling you with the follow- I 

 1 ' a :i '^n% 1 



