Cure for the Stone. — Cheml/iry. 39 1 



a perfon attacked by this difeafe, during the firft fits of 

 phrenfy. Being totally a ftranger to fentiments of fhame, he 

 efcapes from bed, a'd runs with violence to the mountains. 

 He flies from precipice to precipice, and at laft throws him- 

 felf from the firft ileep rock he finds in his way. In general 

 the unfortunate wretch is dafhed to pieces; but if, by fome 

 uncommon chance, the fall does not prove mortal, he foon 

 recovers his reafon and health, and has nothing more to fear 

 from a return of this fatal malady. I fliall not attempt, fays 

 the author, to inquire whether the mineral effluvia which 

 rife from the npfom of the earth in a country expofed to vol- 

 canic convulfions, mar not have as great a (hare in this 

 phenomenon as the conftitution of the inhabitants; but 

 what is certain is, that it often makes its appearance in the 

 province. This fait, adds he, has fo much analogy with 

 what we read in Ovid's Metamorphofes refpe&ing the leap 

 of Leucade, that the one would feem to have ferved as the 

 original of the other. Who knows, fays he, whether the 

 antient fable may not have originated from fome malady 

 fimilar to the above ? 



A furgeon of Madrid has been able to diffolve camphor in 

 water bv means of the carbonic acid. This camphorated 

 folution, injected into the urethra of perfons afflicted with 

 the ftone, allays\he pain almoft inftantaneoufly. 



CHEMISTRY - . 



Mr. Hahneman, of Altona, has difcovered a new fixed al- 

 kali, which he calls pneum, becaufe, when heated to rednefs, 

 its volume is extended to twenty times its ufual fize. It cryf- 

 tallifcs in large prifmatic hexaedral cryflals terminated by 

 two inclined faces, one of which appears to be triedral, and 

 the other pentaedral. Thefe cryflals neither run per deli- 

 qulum nor efflorefce ; but when pulverifed they diffolve at 

 300° of Fahrenheit in half their weight of water, and melt 

 almoft in their water of cryftallifation. At 65 of the fame 

 thermometer, 140 parts require for their folution about 500 

 parts of water. By cold they feparate from the. water. They 

 do not diffolve in alcohol. This alkali produces but little 

 eflervefcence with concentrated acids. With vitriolic acid it 



forms 



