298 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iSsS. 



in the parts of the menstruum insinuating themselves into the solid body, and 

 loosening its parts. 



Some Reflections on the foregoing Paper by Mr. T. M. — What my brother 

 has laid down in this discourse I think undeniably evinces that the received law 

 of hydrostatics is somewhat defective. For liquors, though they are fluid, yet 

 they are bodies, and therefore consist of parts united ; which union, though it 

 be easily destroyed, yet it requires some degree of force for the effecting it; 

 however, I imagine this property ought not to be considered as the sole cause 

 of this appearance ; nay perhaps does not so much as contribute the least in pro- 

 ducing this effect ; for whatever is of sufficient power to raise the minute par- 

 ticles of a heavy body in a light fluid, is certainly sufficient to keep them in 

 that state ; now my supposition may give some account of this ; what my bro- 

 ther says, never can : for he must necessarily suppose them first raised ; and 

 then he gives the reason of their not sinking ; whereas it is not to be questioned 

 but that that force which raised them is the same that keeps them from falling 

 to the bottom. 



A Letter from Dr. Sigismond Konigy dated BerUj the last day of Feb. 1686, to 

 the Royal Society, being a Continuation of the History of his Patient, Mar- 

 garet Lower ; an Account whereof is given in the third Philosophical Collection,* 

 of Dec. 10, 168I. Translated and abridged from the Latin. N°181, p. 94. 

 From the time, viz. the autumn of 168I, to which the history of the case 

 was brought down in the former communication, the patient continued tolerably 

 well until the 18th of August, l682, when she began to be afflicted with nausea 

 and hickup, but without vomiting. These symptoms (after some alleviation 

 procured by a cordial medicine with dulcified spirit of nitre) were followed on 

 the 29th of the last-mentioned month by violent pains in the stomach and ab- 

 domen, difficult respiration, hysterical paroxysms, palpitation of the heart, &c. ; 

 to which succeeded convulsions, loss of speech, and pains like those of a per- 

 son in labour (accompanied with contractions of the limbs) in which the patient 

 voided by stool on the following day (the 30th) a stone (represented in fig. 1], 

 pi. 9,) covered with blood. She afterwards voided two more of a smaller size, 

 accompanied with a haemorrhoidal flux, in consequence of a laceration of the 

 vessels. In a few weeks she got tolerably well again. 



Since that time she has voided about every 3 or 4 weeks calculi (of a harder 

 texture than before and of an angular figure) by stool, but none by vomiting. 

 Previous to their expulsion, the bowels, at other times open, become consti- 

 pated, and a day or two after this constipation takes place a stone is voided. 

 The urine is scanty, not in proportion to the quantity of drink, and generally 



* Vol. U. p> 510, of this Abridgment. 



