106 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO ] 696- 



above-mentioned before dissection ; this kidney had taken place of the spleen, 

 and touched the bottom of the stomach, and in sucli manner pressed on part 

 of the colon, as very much lessened the diameter of that gut. The slomach 

 and small guts were somewhat distended with wind : the former appeared very 

 loose, as if its proper tone was much relaxed. The pancreas appeared a little 

 indurated, the left spermatic vein very much distended, between the kidney and 

 the ovarium ; the upper part of that vein being compressed by the superincum- 

 bency of the lower part of that kidney ; insomuch that the trunk of this sper- 

 matic vein was very much lessened, immediately before it enters into the left 

 emulgent vein. In freeing this diseased kidney from its many adhesions to the 

 neighbouring parts, its external membrane happened to burst in two or three 

 places, whence issued a large quantity of grumous blood. This kidney weighed 

 5 lb. and the other but 5 oz. which was of a common size, and no ways disor- 

 dered. By the distension of the membranous parts of the kidney itself its 

 veins were in a great measure compressed. Its ureter was become large by the 

 intu!ne^ce^ce or thickening of its sides, by which its cavity was straightened. 

 In a division made, by cutting into the body of this swelled kidney, its inside 

 appeared like that of a scirrhus or boiled liver. I found two or three large cells, 

 filled with grumous blood, which proceeded from a rupture of some blood 

 vessels before death, which I am apt to think might alarm the patient with the 

 apprehensions of some weight failing down, as she expressed it. The rest of 

 the viscera of the lower belly appeared in no ill state, except the vagina uteri, 

 in which, near the meatus urinarius, was an ulcerous appearance, attended with 

 a mortification. The left psoas muscle was very much lessened by the com- 

 pression of the lower part of that kidney ; and the nerves distributed to some 

 parts of the thigh, which pass through that muscle, were exposed to view. 



Nothing disordered appeared in the thorax, but what is commonly observed 

 after death in all chronical diseases, viz. a polypus in each ventricle of the heart, 

 and great blood-vessels, of which I have commonly observed the right ventricle 

 and the veins to be furnished vvitli the largest polypuses, especially the vena 

 cava and right auricle ; the latter of which I lately found completely distended 

 with a polypus, or coagulation of serum, in the body of a boy who died with a 

 hydrops thoracis; in which case the symptoms of sighing and difficulty in inspi- 

 ration I have always found remarkable. I cannot but think the slow return of 

 the blood by the veins is the immediate cause of the coagulation of the serous 

 part of the blood which frames these bodies, which, from the figure they 

 acquire from the parts they are lodged in, are called polypi ; hence it is the 

 systole of the heart prevents their being framed so large in the left ventricle and 

 arteries as in the right and the veins ; the blood being carried through the 



