648 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683. 



oval joint, the oval in the upper part of it, standing clear contrary to the oval 

 in the lower part. 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 

 55, round and oval single joints, differing in their rays and other ways of 

 jointing. 



Extract of two Letters from Mr. Sampson Birch, of Stafford, concerning dn 

 Extraordinary Birth in Staffordshire, with Rejections hy Edw. Tyson, M. D. 

 F.R.S. N'^150, p. 281. 



The wife of one Taylor, in Heywood, Staffordshire, about 24 or 25 years of 

 age, being married about a year, in January last fell in labour, and not being 

 able to be delivered, after 5 or 6 days, the child being dead, the surgeon 

 brought it away by strength with instruments, and afterwards the after-birth; 

 but then perceived that there was still remaining something besides, which lay 

 separate from the child and after-birth, but very firmly adhering to the womb, 

 so that in separating this, it was much more difficult and painful to her than 

 bringing away the dead child, and orrasinnerl a large flux of blood. 



The thing itself was sent by Mr. Birch to Dr. Flot at Oxford, and by him 

 to the Royal Society ; so that having an opportunity of observing it, I shall 

 here give not only a figure of this strange body, but add to the accounts of it 

 in the letters what I think material. But must premise that it was mentioned 

 in them, that the child was perfectly formed ; that the mother was since reco- 

 vered and walks abroad ; that before marriage she was never troubled with any 

 remarkable distempers ; and that this body I am going to describe was not ob- 

 served to be included in any cystis, the secundine being all brought away be- 

 fore it. 



The size and shape of this preternatural body will be easily conceived by the 

 figure (pi. 18, fig. 7) which is made as exact and large as the thing itself. In 

 the upper part was a round protuberant bone, 3^ inches in compass, covered 

 with a thick fleshy skin, beset with short hairs. On the top of this bone in a 

 circle were placed 8 dentes molares, or those double teeth we call grinders. 

 These so exactly resembled teeth as to their shape, whiteness, hardness, and in 

 all other circumstances, that they can certainly be nothing else. A little below 

 this, in another bone, which was fastened to the former, were placed 5 other 

 teeth, or dentes molares ; these were not so in a cluster together as the former, 

 but 4 of them made almost a straight line, with some distance in the middle, 

 and the 5th a little out of rank, being placed below the 2 uppermost. 



The remaining part of this monstrous body, composed a large cystis or bag, 

 filled with a liquid slimy matter, but not foetid. This cystis on the outside was 

 smooth, appeared somewhat red, and was about the thickness of the scrotum. 



