TOL. XVItl.] VHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 6l8 



the constant hectic fever with which the patient had been affected. Hence the 

 undulating pulse, which indeed towards the last could scarcely be felt. The 

 liver was surprisingly enlarged, occupying not only the right hypochondrium 

 but the left also; while the spleen was smaller than usual. Moreover there 

 were strong adhesions of the liver, both in the right and left side, so that it 

 could not be detached without much trouble and violence. Hence the dif- 

 ficulty under which the patient laboured of lying upon either side, as well as 

 the irritation of the stomach from the pressure thus occasioned. Not only was 

 that portion of the liver which filled the right hypochondrium provided with a 

 gall bladder, but likewise that which occupied the left, i. e. there were 2 gall- 

 bladders, both turgid with bile. The right kidney was in every respect natural : 

 but out of the left kidney (which I had all along pronounced to be the seat of 

 the disease that would sooner or later prove fatal) we took a stone that was 

 curiously contorted, weighing i an ounce, as white as chalk, and divaricated 

 into 3 branches which were joined together in the middle. Hence the excruci- 

 ating pains with which the patient was afflicted ; hence, too, the vomitings, 

 unless indeed they should rather be attributed to the 2 gall-bladders, pouring 

 out a redundancy of bile. That the frequent purgings were owing to the last- 

 mentioned circumstance, cannot be doubted. 



An Account of Books : viz. — 1. Osservationi Naturali, &c. Natural Obser- 

 vations, containing several Medico-Physical and Botanical Matters, with divers 

 Natural Productions, several sorts of Phosphori, Subterraneous Fires in Italy, 

 and other curious Subjects, in Familiar Letters. By Paul Boccone,* M.D. 

 Bononia, l2mo. l684. N°207, p. 33. 



This miscellaneous treatise of the ingenious Boccone, written in Italian, con- 

 tains 26 observations. The author had formerly published in French, Natural 

 Inquiries and Observations on Coral, Astroites, &c. at Paris, in 167J, reprinted 

 at Amsterdam in 1674; and at Oxford his Icons and Descriptions of the Rare 

 Plants of Sicily, &c. were printed in 1674. 



In the first of the observations contained in this tract the author treats of the 

 effects, causes, and preparation of the noctiluca, or phosphorus aereus, as it 

 was made by Mr. Boyle. The 2d observation is of subterraneous fires, and 

 their phajnomena and cause, from the effervescence of an acid and alcali, with 

 an ethereal or subtile matter interposed. The 3d observation is of cures and 

 preservatives from the plague, where he so much extols vesicatories, which in the 

 year 1656 preserved as many as made use of them, when the plague raged at 



* This Italian naturalist was born at Palermo in l633. He travelled through most of the southern 

 parts of Europe, in pursuit of Natural History, and died in 1704. 



