VOL. XX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 2Q3 



correction ; and therefore we must be content with some little irregularity 

 therein ; that so they may tolerably answer, though not exactly, the different 

 compositions according to the different placing of mi in the gamut. 



Concerning a Periodical Palsy. By Dr. Wm. Musgrave, F. R. S. N°'242, p. 257. 



A periodical palsy is a very unusual distemper ; I do not remember either from 

 books or men to have met with more than two instances of it. The one was in 

 a young man in the Duchy of Wirtemberg, who, for the space of 12 years, 

 spoke only 1 hour in the 24, and that always at the same time, viz. between 

 12 and 1 of the day. The other instance has fallen within my own observa- 

 tion, and is as follows : 



The patient was a young woman about 21, of a sanguine complexion. She 

 had been for several days less active than usual ; and after that lost her speech, 

 and the use of her legs. She had little or no sense of feeling in them, and the 

 left leg was drawn up as in a violent cramp. Her ruddy sanguine look directed 

 bleeding, but that did not relieve her. I then gave her spirit of sal ammoniac 

 succinated, steel with gentian, amber, castor, and other warm cephalics ; a 

 blister was laid on her neck ; a bath of wormwood, and other hot herbs, pre- 

 pared for her legs ; ung. martiatum used to anoint them after bathing. By 

 these means she was, in the space of 3 days, able to speak again, and in a little 

 time, by the help of crutches, able to go. But then omitting the medicines, 

 though hut one day, lost her speech again ; and returning to them, especially 

 the spirit, recovered it as soon. When not able to speak, she had a manifest 

 alteration in her face; the strength and tonic vigour of it abated, her eyes grew 

 dull, and her lips pale. I have in this juncture given her 30 drops of the spirit, 

 in the space of 2 hours the cliange has been surprising, her eye has quickened, 

 a colour come over her face, her speech returned. 



In July, l688, I was again at Astrop ; whither the mother, encouraged by 

 the success of the last year's physic, brought her daughter to me, and gave me 

 the following account of her, viz. that after the physic I had prescribed her was 

 all gone, her speech and the use of her legs left her, first on a Tuesday about 

 noon, that it returned the Saturday following, near the same hour ; and that for 

 10 months her speech and strength of legs observed the same period, of going 

 off on Tuesdays every week, and returning on Saturdays, with only 2 excep- 

 tions, viz. that once they returned on a Friday, another time not before Sun- 

 day. Her menses were regular as to period, but unequal as to quantity, with 

 this farther observable, that when they were most the patient was worst. Be- 

 fore her speech used to go off she constantly lost for an hour's space the use of 



