544 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1682. 



which could not be seen so well when they lay all in a bundle ; because they 

 then appeared like bullets, or when 2 or 3 lay together, for then they appeared 

 like a braided chord, but singly. And to be sure all these several appearances of 

 bullets or braidings are no other than the varieties of the heightenings and 

 deepenings, which are caused by the various falling of the light upon these 

 rimplings, of the small strings of which every bundle of muscular fibres 

 consists. 



Some Observations on a Calculus found in a Horse. By H. P. M. D. and F.R.S. 

 Abridged and translated from the Latin. Philos. Collect. N° 7, p. igi. 



Having not long since presented to the Royal Society a stone of an extraor- 

 dinary size, taken from the bowels of a horse at Lambeth, I was then requested 

 to make further inquiries concerning the calculus, as well as the horse ; and to 

 transmit the result thereof to the Society. The stone, which weighed 4}b 

 4oz. was as large as a man's head, and not very unlike it in shape. I inquired 

 about the situation of the stone, the age and condition of the horse, and 

 whether the animal's urine was bloody, or whether he was troubled with stran- 

 gury or suppression of urine. But the common people are inattentive to these 

 things; and provided these animals are capable of going through the hard 

 labour to which they are put, those who own them or look after them give 

 themselves no trouble whatever about other matters. I imagine the person who 

 took out the stone to be [anatomically] ignorant of the parts or their situation. 

 He asserts that it was found between the bladder and intestine. Perhaps however, 

 there is not much mistatement of the fact in this assertion. For the stone was 

 on one side flat and smooth, viz. on the side down which the urine conti- 

 nually dribbled, but not without difficulty, by reason of the little space that was 

 left for it; on the other side which adhered to the bladder, it was rough and 

 porous, and daily increasing in bulk and weight, had worn away and destroyed 

 the whole of the tender coat of the bladder, so that no vestige thereof remained. 

 The horse, as I was informed by the owner who had kept him for 1 2 years, was 

 15 hands high, and was employed in carrying cloth from the dyers. The pieces 

 of cloth were heaped upon his back while they were yet warm from the vats,"* 



* The author here enters into an inquiry, whether the hquor (impregnated witli the dying mate- 

 rials) from the moist pieces of cloth so frequently applied over the horse's loins, or the mere warmth 

 thereof (for the dyed cloth was put on the horse's back quite hot from the vats) might not injure the 

 kidneys in such manner as to contribute to the generation of the stone. The last supposition is by 

 no means improbable, especially when it is considered, that on taking oiF the load of dyed cloth, 

 more or less inflammatory action might occasionally be excited in those parts, in consequence of the 

 sudden chills which would succeed. What renders this supposition further probable, is an observation 



