132 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. j^ANNO I697. 



Pope Innocent XII. having called him to Rome, to make him his chief 

 physician, he began the 1st year to lose his fresh colour ; in the 2d he voided 

 many stones without much pain ; and in the third, which was the last of his life, 

 he was oppressed, during the winter, with a difficulty of breathing. His health 

 being thus insensibly undermined, and a bilious looseness returning frequently, 

 he was at length seized with a vertigo, a loss of speech, and a contortion of 

 the mouth, with a palsy of half the right side. Bleedings, purges, diuretics, 

 and antapoplectic medicines, gave some temporary relief; but perceiving his 

 end drawing near, he set his affairs and his writings in order, bequeathing his 

 posthumous works to the Royal Society ; soon after which, another stroke of 

 apoplexy, in 4 hours, put a period to his life, Nov. 'ig. 



The abdomen being opened, the ventricle, the guts, the sweet-bread, the 

 spleen and liver were quite sound, both as to colour and size, only the gall 

 bladder abounded with a black gall. The left kidney had nothing amiss ; but 

 the right was only half the size, and had its pelvis thrice as large : which dis- 

 covered the cause of the easy descent of the stones. In the bladder was a little 

 stone, that seemed to have fallen into it a few days before. On removing the 

 sternum, the lungs appeared withered, with some mark of corruption on the 

 back-side. The heart was larger than ordinary, and the sides of the left ventricle 

 felt harder and thicker in some places than others ; yet there was no polypus 

 found in either of the ventricles, though there was ground to suspect it. At 

 last the skull being cut asunder, the true cause of his death was discovered, for 

 the right ventricle of the brain contained almost 2 ounces of extravasated blood, 

 and the left ventricle was swelled with a thick and yellow sort of phlegm, which 

 weighed more than an ounce. The dura mater stuck closer to the skull than 

 is usual. 



This proves that the conglobate glands in the whole body, had thrown into 

 the mass of blood an acid lymph ; and that the conglomerate glands of the 

 hypochondria, especially those of tlie liver, had thrown into it a melancholy 

 humour ; and that these two sorts of iiumours being carried into the vessels of 

 the brain, had disposed the blood to coagulate there ; and that having tliere 

 corroded and broken the tunicles, they had run into the cavities, where they 

 caused death.* 



The Origin of a Polj/Jius discovered. By Mr. Giles, sworn Surgeon at St. Come, 

 translated from Brunei's Progres de la Medecine. N° 22(), p. 472. 



In June lOSJ, being called to see a lady, who had a polypus in the right 



* This mode of accounting for the morbid appearances, on the principles of the humoral patho- 

 logy, is by no means satisfactory. 



