394 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l66g. 



Elizabeth Trevers, 23 or 24 years of age, fair of complexion, brown haired, 

 of a healthy constitution, low of stature, of honest repute, but of mean and 

 poor parentage, near this town, was on Friday July 3, 1669, in good health, 

 and went well to bed, where she took as good rest and sleep as ever before, but 

 in the morning when she awakened, and attempted to turn herself in her bed 

 was not able, finding her breasts so swelled, that she was afFrightened to asto- 

 nishment. Then endeavouring to sit up the weight of her breasts fastened her 

 to her bed, where she has lain ever since, yet entirely without pain and weak- 

 ness either in her breasts or in any other part. See fig. 3, pi. 10. 



This being noised abroad, several physicians and surgeons resorted to her: 

 some proposed cutting off her breasts, which I was wholly against, advising for 

 the present only an emollient and temperately warm fotus, and once gave her a 

 ' purgative bolus, upon the taking of which she had ten motions deorsum, and 

 the swelling somewhat abated ; but the maid was so weakened upon it for two 

 or three days after, that 1 durst not attempt any thing of that nature since ; sed 

 quia passa fuit suppressionem mensium per sex retro menses, diuretica nonnulla, 

 et sanguinis menstrui prolectamenta praescripsi, intending also phlebotomy. 

 The tubuli or pipes of the breasts are all very hard and swelled, and indeed the 

 whole breasts seem to be nothing else but those tubuli, and little or nothing of 

 wind or water. As near as we can guess the left breast weighs about 25 pounds, 

 but the right somewhat less. And the skin of the back, neck, and belly, seem 

 to be drawn towards the breasts to serve for the distension. The measures of 

 the breasts are these: 



The circumference of the right breast two feet seven inches; of the left 

 breast three feet one inch and a half; the length of the right breast from the 

 collar-bone one foot five inches and a half; the length of the left breast one foot 

 seven inches and a half; the breadth of the right breast as it lies one foot one 

 inch ; the breadth of the left one foot four inches and a half. 



Now what should occasion those monstrous tumours of the whole breasts, 

 and that so suddenly in one night, keeps us in great suspense. There occurs 

 nothing in this point satisfactory in the writings of Platerus, Rhodericus a Castro, 

 Fontanus, Forestus, or any other of the moderns that I have seen, writing 

 de Morbis Mulierum, suitable to what may be offered upon the data of the 

 circulation of the blood, the lymphceducts, and the vasa chylifera thoracica, and 

 probably some capillary vessels branching thence (in their progress to the sub- 

 clavians) through the intercostal muscles into the breasts. 



This narrative having been read at the R. S. the author desired to im- 

 part what he should further obser\'e in this very extraordinary accident ; he 

 therefore wrote some while after a second letter to the Editor, (dated Sept. 17^ 

 1669,) an extract of which is as follows: 



