404 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I677. 



I have also observed the spinal marrow of a calf^ pullet, sheep, and cod-fish; 

 •which I have found to consist of no other parts than those of the brain ; yet 

 with this difference, that besides the globules in the brain, there lay in the spinal 

 marrow a great number of shining oleaginous globules of divers sizes, some of 

 them 50 times larger than others ; and those also very soft and fluid. These 

 spinal marrows were also furnished with exceedingly thin and manifold small 

 veins or vessels ; and besides these very small veins, there ran up and down along 

 these spinal marrows brown filaments, thinner than the hair of the head. I 

 perceived that each filament was not one single vessel by itself, but that each of 

 them consisted of divers very small threads or vessels, lying by each other, be- 

 tween which threads there lay very clear vessels of the fineness of a single silk- 

 worm thread. 



Lately being at the house of M. Huygens, he showed me some of that moxa, 

 which by burning it upon any gouty part removes the gout. This moxa agrees in 

 shape with cotton: for as there is no other difterence between hair and wool, than 

 that hair is coarser and longer than wool, both being made up of globules, and 

 they being clear about the rounder end; so little difference is there between the 

 moxa and cotton, for they have both two flat sides. Such a shape has also the 

 roughness that is found lying within, against the red bark of a chesnut; only 

 with this difference, that that of moxa is much thinner than that of cotton, and 

 that of cotton thinner than that of the chesnut. I have put some of the moxa 

 on fine post-paper, and some cotton likewise, after I had somewhat cut it asunder 

 with scissars, that so by its being shorter the fire might the better pass from 

 one part to the other. The burnings caused on the paper by both were very 

 near alike ; and I concluded, that if the burning had any effect in the gout, it 

 proceeded not from any peculiar quality in the moxa, but only from the burning 

 itself; and that if the burning were made with cotton it would produce as good 

 effects as if made with moxa. 



Having considered the saying of surgeons, that cotton is fiery and malignant 

 if any wound be dressed with it; I have found, that that firiness or malignity 

 consists in this, that cotton having two flat sides, and consequently every part 

 of it two sharp sides, which being thinner than globules that make up the 

 earneous filaments, and being also stiffer than the globular flesh ; it happens, 

 that cotton being laid upon a wound, not only the globules of the yet sound 

 flesh are annoyed by the sharp sides of it, but also the new matter which is 

 conveyed to make new flesh, and is yet softer than the flesh already made, is 

 the more easily cut asunder and dissolved; whereas, on the contrary, linen 

 rags having roundish parts, and many of them lying firm together, and so 

 making up a greater body, do not so wound the globular parts of the flesh. 



