YOL. XIV.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 40 



at the forehead there were excrescences like artificial lace. It looked fiercely 

 with the left eye, keeping the other close. Behind the head there was a shape 

 like a hood, or other ornament, which women commonly wear. His arm was 

 figured as the scheme, with several knots or joints. The tail, which was strangely 

 grown out of the back-part, 9, was a quarter of a Zealandish ell long. The 

 mother of this child, about 40 years of age, has had formerly two other sons, 

 now of 7 and 9 years of age, which are very well shaped, and still living. This 

 monster, after it had cried out twice or thrice presently expired. 



Pr<Eclarissimo et Eruditissimo Firo D. Spon, M. D. et Lugdunensi ^natomico 

 accuratissimo Marcellus Malpighi, S. P. Extracted and translated from the 

 Latin. N° ]6o, p. 601. 



This letter was written in consequence of a notice sent by Dr. Spon to the 

 author, that a new edition of his (Malpighi's) works was about to be printed, 

 wherein the publisher would be glad to insert any additional observations the 

 author might wish to make. 



The letter itself relates to two subjects, viz. (l) A preternatural horny excres- 

 cence which grew and hung down from the neck of an ox, in the place where 

 the yoke is fastened ; and (2) certain morbid appearances observed in the human 

 kidneys. 



He describes with much minuteness the aforesaid horn, the structure and 

 appearances of which, he thinks, throw great light on the formation and growth 

 of the hoofs of quadrupeds; a subject on which he had before offered some re- 

 flections in his treatise on the organ of touch. He supposes that hoofs and 

 horns are produced by the elongation and subsequent consolidation of the 

 papillae of the skin invested with the cuticle and corpus reticulare, and that they 

 are appendages or helps to the sense of touch. The spurs of cocks, he adds, 

 have a similar origin and formation. 



Then follows an account of certain morbid appearances observed on opening 

 the body of a young gentleman, named Anthony Francis Davia, which serve to 

 illustrate (he thinks) in a very striking manner the description he formerly gave 

 of the structure of the kidneys. The external or cortical part of this person's 

 left kidney was composed of a great number of glandular folliculi, resembling a 

 bunch of grapes. These folliculi were not furnished with those excretory 

 vessels of which the fleshy part of the kidneys is usually composed; but had a 

 direct communication with the pelvis, or at least were connected with it by 

 a very short duct. The right kidney was much larger than the left, and several 

 glands of a considerable size, resembling vesicles distended with urine, were 



VOL. III. H 



