634 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I694. 



woman through the urethra, in N° 202 of the Trans, has mentioned two o 

 three notions, which I suppose this operation confutes. 1st, He thinks that 

 women never breed stones so large as men ; the contrary of which seems to be 

 manifest by this operation : for perhaps a stone of so large a size as this was 

 never yet taken out of the bladder of a living man. 2d, He seems to conclude 

 it probable that all women may be freed from the stone by dilatation of the urinary 

 passage, and then forcing away the stone through it : which method I think 

 cannot be depended on, since the stones may prove of so great a size. 3d, He 

 says, that dividing the membranous substance of the bladder, is to be avoided 

 as certain death to the patient: whereas this stone, and many others have 

 proved too large to be extracted through an incision made only within the short 

 neck of a woman's bladder. The patient never had the least ill symptom since 

 her being cut, and is now perfectly well. 



Observations on Epidemic Distempers. By Dr. Thomas Molyneux. 



N° 209, p. 105. 

 About the beginning of November, 1693, after a constant course of weather 

 moderately warm for the season, upon some snow, falling, of a sudden it grew 

 extremely cold, and soon after there succeeded some few days of very hard 

 frost ; upon which rheums of all kinds, such as violent coughs, that chiefly 

 affected in the night, great defluxion of thin rheum at the nose and eyes, 

 immoderate discharges of the saliva by spitting, hoarseness of voice, sore 

 throats, with some trouble in swallowing, wheezings, obstructions, and sore- 

 ness in the breast, a dull heaviness and stoppage in the head, with such like 

 disorders, the usual effects of cold, seized great numbers of all sorts of people 

 in Dublin. Some were more violently affected, so as to be confined a while to 

 their beds ; those complained of feverish symptoms, as shiverings and chillness 

 all over them, that made several returns ; pains in many parts of their body, 

 severe head-achs, chiefly about their foreheads, so that the least noise was very 

 troublesome ; great weakness in their eyes, that the least light was offensive ; a 

 perfect decay of all appetite ; foul turbid urine, with a brick-coloured sediment 

 at the bottom ; great uneasiness and tossing in their beds all night : yet these 

 disorders would usually, without any remedies, abate of themselves, and 

 terminate in universal sweats, that constantly relieved. This more violent de- 

 gree of the cold was more apt to affect such as were given to excess either in 

 eating or drinking, or inclinable to a scrophulous disposition of body, than on 

 those that were more temperate, and less subject to obstructions. When the 

 cold was but moderate, it was usually over in 8 or lO days: but with those in 

 whom it rose to a greater height, it continued a fortnight, or three weeks, and 



