108 I'HILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO I696. 



when the nervous ramifications are relaxed, as in paralytic cases, &c. The 

 tone of the part necessarily becomes vitiated, inasmuch as its nervous distribu- 

 tions are disordered. The contents of the stomach and guts, not being duly 

 carried on, are apt to ferment ; the contained air being rarefied by the natural 

 heat, the intestines become very much distended ; whence colic pains and dis- 

 turbances in those parts sometimes arise; hence by procuring the evacuation of 

 this contained wind, the patent is relieved, as by the injection of clysters, &c. 

 Concerning the operation of opium, and how it procures ease in this and similar 

 cases, I shall only relate what occurred when an ingenious person and myself 

 examined a solution of opium with the microscope ; the particles of the dissolved 

 opium appeared like fringed globules ; these particles, if so conveyed to the 

 mass of blood, might so entangle in its serum and thicken it,* as to retard the 

 globules of the blood, and prevent their progressive motion at the extremities 

 of the blood-vessels : hence the blood, not pasting with its wonted velocity, does 

 not so suddenly distend those enlarged vessels, which have a considerable share 

 in the intumescence of the part; but by making the globules of the blood pass 

 more calmly, may prevent their sudden efforts, or intrusions into those dis- 

 tended vessels. The tumefied kidney not only compressed the left spermatic 

 vein, by which the refluent blood of the uterus, vagina, and parts adjacent, 

 was in some measure retarded, but some of the nerves of the vagina, and those 

 of the pudendum, were also compressed by it ; hence arises pain from inflam 

 mation, through a retardation of the blood, at the extremities of the vast 

 number of blood-vessels, about the meatus urinarius, at its egress in the vagina ; 

 whence exulceration and mortification ensued. The magnitude of this kidney 

 prevented the bending forwards of the body, whence she was obliged to keep it 

 erect. The lower part of the left kidney had so compressed the left musculus 

 psoas, as scarcely a third part of its proper bulk remained ; whence necessarily 

 followed a great weakness in drawing the thigh forwards ; she had a great stupor 

 in that thigh, through a compression of the lumbar nerves, which lay exposed 

 immediately under the tumefied kidney. 



I am apt to think, that cases not unlike this are often taken to proceed from 

 stones in the kidneys or ureters ; but I conceive that unusual posture in keeping 

 the body erect, may distinguish it : together with a weakness of drawing the 

 thigh and leg forwards. If these symptoms do not conjunctly occur, yet by 

 this we may perceive, that nephritic disorders are not, as is commonly throught, 

 owing to stones, whether in the kidneys or ureters. 



Ballonius Epidcm, p. 220, mentions a case not unlike this, of a tumefied 

 kidney 4 times as large as natural, 



* This mechanical hypothesis concerning tlie action of opium is inadmissible. 



