OF THOMAS PARR. 591 



ciently healthy ; on their anterior aspects, however, they con- 

 tained several small watery abscesses or serous collections, one 

 of which, the size of a hen's egg, containing a yellow fluid in 

 a proper cyst, had made a rounded depression in the substance 

 of the kidney. To this some were disposed to ascribe the 

 suppression of urine under which the old man had laboured 

 shortly before his death whilst others, and with greater show 

 of likelihood, ascribed it to the great regurgitation of serum 

 upon the lungs. 



There was no appearance of stone either in the kidneys or 

 bladder. 



The mesentery was loaded with fat, and the colon, with the 

 omentum, which was likewise fat, was attached to the liver, near 

 the fundus of the gall-bladder; in like manner the colon was 

 adherent from this point posteriorly with the peritoneum. 



The viscera were healthy ; they only looked somewhat white 

 externally, as they would have done had they been parboiled ; 

 internally they were (like the blood,) of the colour of dark gore. 



The spleen was very small, scarcely equalling one of the kid- 

 neys in size. 



All the internal parts, in a word, appeared so healthy, that 

 had nothing happened to interfere with the old man's habits 

 of life, he might perhaps have escaped paying the debt due to 

 nature for some little time longer. 



The cause of death seemed fairly referrible to a sudden 

 change in the non-naturals, the chief mischief being connected 

 with the change of air, which through the whole course of life 

 had been inhaled of perfect purity, light, cool, and mobile, 

 whereby the prsecordia and lungs were more freely ventilated 

 and cooled ; but in this great advantage, in this grand cherisher 

 of life this city is especially destitute; a city whose grand charac- 

 teristic is an immense concourse of men and animals, and where 

 ditches abound, and filth and offal lie scattered about, to say 

 nothing of the smoke engendered by the general use of sul- 

 phureous coal as fuel, whereby the air is at all times rendered 

 heavy, but much more so in the autumn than at any other 

 season. Such an atmosphere could not have been found other- 

 wise than insalubrious to one coming from the open, sunny 

 and healthy region of Salop ; it must have been especially so 

 to one already aged and infirm. 



