TOL. Xril.] FHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 457 



egg ; the whole was a little heavier specifically than water ; for a single egg 

 sunk when loosed from the rest, but when they were fastened a great many to- 

 gether, they swam, every three eggs leaving a little space, which, being filled 

 with air, made them specifically lighter than common water. 



Account of a Ruminating Man. By Frederic Slave, M. D. and F. R. S. 



N" 193, p. 525. 

 This ruminating man lived at Bristol. He would begin to chew his meat 

 over again within a quarter of an hour after his meals, if he drank, upon them ; 

 if not, it was some time longer. This chewing, after a full meal, lasted about 

 an hour and a half. If he went to bed presently after meals, he could not sleep, 

 till the usual time of chewing was over. The victuals, on their return, tasted 

 somewhat more pleasant than at first. Bread, meat, cheese, and drink seemed 

 to return much of the same colour as if they were mixed together in a mortar. 

 Liquids, as broth and spoon-meat, returned to his mouth all one as dry and 

 solid food. The victuals seemed to the patient to lie heavy in the lower part of 

 his throat, untiil they had undergone the sec6nd chewing; afterwards they 

 would pass clean away ; and he always observed, that if he eat variety of things, 

 what he swallowed first would again come up first to be chewed. If this faculty 

 intermitted at any time, it portended sickness, and he was never well, till it re- 

 turned again. The patient was always thus affected, since he could remember ; 

 his father sometimes chewed his cud, but in small quantities, and nothing like 

 his son. 



History is very sparing as to many instances of this kind : Fabricius ab Aqua 

 pendente is (I think) the first that mentions one, being a nobleman of Padua 

 that ruminated in his days, whom he had the luck to outlive, and the leave to 

 dissect ; and what is very strange, he found only one large but very rugous 

 ventricle. He also notes a monk of that place to have had the same faculty. 

 Sennertus also takes notice of one ; and so does Salmuth : as also Velshius, who 

 names one Damy, a Welshman, that lived in London, but of these they give 

 no particulars. Ludovicus, a Franckfort physician, who lately lived and practised 

 there, describes a person that to him seemed to ruminate, but this sort of rumi- 

 nation seemed rather a disease, for this man did it with aversion, he rather dis- 

 gorged than ruminated. Of this kind I have known several in London, who 

 throw up an ill-tasted and bitter mass, half an hour or an hour after feeding, 

 and that to their great disgust : but in true rumination it returns pleasant, and 

 they chew it the second time with delight. Peyerus, who has written at large, 

 and very ingeniously, about rumination, found two persons in his country that 

 were alive when he wrote that book, and had been noticed to ruminate. 



VOL. III. 3 N 



