102 DISEASES CLASS I. 2. 3. 25.. 



ternally mercurial ointment has been much recommended. 

 Poultice. Oiled silk. Clysters of broth. Warm bath of broth- 

 Transfusion of blood into a vein three or four ounces a day? 

 See Class III. 1. 1. 15. 



I directed a young woman, about twenty-two years of age, 

 to be fed with new milk put into a bladder, which was tied to a 

 catheter, and introduced beyond the stricture in her throat; af- 

 ter a few days her spirits sunk, and she refused to use it further, 

 and died. Above thirty years ago, I proposed to an old gentle- 

 man, whose throat was entirely impervious, to supply him with 

 a few ounces of blood daily from an ass, or from the human ani- 

 mal, who is still more patient and tractable, in the following 

 manner: To fix a silver pipe about an inch long to each extremi- 

 ty of a chicken's gut, the part between the two silver ends to be 

 measured by filling it with warm water; to put one end into the 

 vein of a person hired for that purpose, so as to receive the 

 blood returning from the extremity; and when the gut was quite 

 full, and the blood running through the other silver end, to intro- 

 duce that end into the vein of the patient upwards towards 

 the heart, so as to admit no air along with the blood. And 

 lastly, to support the gut and silver ends on a water-plate, fill- 

 ed with water of ninety-eight degrees of heat, and to measure 

 how many ounces of blood was introduced by passing the finger, 

 so as to compress the gut, from the receiving pipe to the deliver- 

 ing-pipe; and thence to determine how many gut-fuls were 

 given from the healthy person to the patient. Mr. con- 

 sidered a day on this proposal, and then another day, and at 

 length answered, that " he now found himself near the house of 

 death; and that, if he could return, he was now too old to have 

 much enjoyment of life; and therefore he wished rather to pro- 

 ceed to the end of that journey, which he was now so near, and 

 which he must at all events soon go, than return for so short a' 

 time." He lived but a few days afterwards, and seemed quite 

 careless and easy about the matter. See Suppl. I. 14. 4. 



A difficulty of swallowing food, and a rejection soon after, of 

 the whole or a part of it, may be often owing probably to a sort 

 of valve made by a part of the membrane which lines the oesopha- 

 gus; and may thus resemble strictures of the urethra; which 

 last are so frequently cured by the nice application of lunar caus- 

 tic, as described by Mr. Everard Home, in his Treatise on Stric- 

 tures of the Urethra. Suppose a thick bougie, made of linen 

 spread with adhesive plaster, and rolled up, was armed at the 

 end with a bit of lunar caustic, with which the stricture of the 

 oesophagus could be touched repeatedly, till an unarmed bougie 

 could be passed readily into the stomach, Could such a valve be 



