VOL. n.'] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 205 



Some neiv Experiments of Injecting medicated Liquors into Veins, to- 

 gether ivith [an Account o/'] considerable Cures performed thereby. 

 Communicated by Dr. Fabritius, of Dantzick. [Translated by Mr. 

 Oldenburg from the original Latin.'\ N" 30, p. 564. 



As we had a great desire to try what would be the effect of the surgical 

 experiment of injecting liquors into human veins, three fit subjects present- 

 ing themselves in out hospital, we thought good to make the trial upon 

 them. But seeing little ground to hope for a manifest operation from merely 

 altering medicines, we thought the experiment would be more convenient and 

 conspicuous from laxatives; which made us inject by a syphon about two drams 

 of such a kind of physic into the median vein of the right arm. The patients 

 were these : One was a lusty robust soldier dangerously infected with the vene- 

 real disease, and suffering grievous exostoses of the bones in his arms. He, 

 when the purgative liquor was infused into him, complained of great pains in his 

 elbows, and the little valves of his arm swelled so visibly that it was necessary 

 by a gentle compression of one's fingers to stroke up that swelling towards the 

 patient's shoulders. About four hours after it began to work, not very trouble- 

 somely; and so it did the next day, insomuch that the man had five good stools 

 after it. Without any other remedies, those protuberances were gone, nor are 

 there any traces left of the above-mentioned disease.* 



The two other trials were made upon the other sex. A married woman of 

 35, and a servant maid of 20 years of age, had been both of them from their 

 birth very grievously afflicted with epileptic fits, so that there were little hopes 

 left to cure them. They both underwent this operation, and there was injected 

 into their veins a laxative rosin, dissolved in an anti-epileptic spirit. The first 

 of these had gentle stools some hours after the injection, the next day the fits 

 recurred now and then, but much milder, and are since altogether vanished. 

 As for the other, viz. the maid, she went the same day to stool four times, and 

 several times the next ; but by going into the air, taking cold, and being care- 

 less in her food, she died. 



It is remarkable that all three vomited soon after the injection, and that 

 excessively and frequently. 



* That venereal exostoses should be thus removed in the short space of two days, appears a most 

 extraordinary fact. Might not the supposed " protuberances of tlie bones" have been tixmors formed 

 by obstructions taking place in the lymphatic vessels ? In that case their sudden disappearance after 

 the cathartic operation of the injected hquor will cease to excite astonishment. 



