372 PHILOSOPHICAL 1 RANSACTIONS. [ANNO lOQQ, 



and second vertebrae of the neck ; i another small muscle like the for- 

 mer, placed between the second and third vertebrae ; kk, &c. the four pair 

 of muscles I call interspinales colli, which are described in my book of the 

 muscles, &c. 



Concerning a deformed Human Skull. By M. Dupre. N° 251, p. 138. 



Nicholas Erodes, 30 years of age, having been for 10 years afflicted with an 

 incessant head-ache, which for the last 12 months before his decease had been 

 more violent than formerly, and deprived him of his sight, was received into 

 the Hotel Dieu. After his head was shaved, there appeared a large tumor, 

 which extended itself over the hairy scalp. In the midst of the left parietal 

 bone, there was the pulsation of an artery, and a small fluctuation, the rest of 

 the tumor being very hard. M. Dupre, fearing this might be an aneurism, was 

 unwilling to open the tumor, till he was constrained to it, by the importunate 

 intreaiies of the patierft, who chose rather the hazard of his life, than any 

 longer to endure so exquisite a torment. As soon as an aperture was made, 

 there issued out a quantity of thick concreted blood, which wet the bolsters at 

 every dressing. The second day he felt a hard body with his probe, loose in 

 the flesh, which being taken out, appeared to be a small fragment of a bone 

 exfoliated, resembling a small comb-brush On the 4lh day the patient died. 



On dissecting the head, the tumefied part of the skull appeared to arise more 

 than an inch above the sound bone. Tlie whole swelling of the cranium was 

 made up of several substances, not unlike little horns, or innumerable small 

 hollow cones, with their points downwards; besides a great number of bony 

 fibres, straight, stiff, and pointed, resembling the teasels used by cloth-workers. 

 There were also several holes, some of which perforated the skull, others not. 

 There was no distinction of the sutures. The meninges were uiortified and 

 confounded together, and in part adhered to the bony excrescences of the left 

 parietal bone ; yet the brain was sound and entire. The inequalities of the 

 jnner surface of the cranium, resembled melted metal poured down from a con- 

 siderable height, on a light moving sand ; or the inside of a grotto, in which 

 the stones jet out in an irregular manner. The whole leftside had lost its 

 natural form, and the right had only a few impressions, made by the beating of 

 the arteries of the dura mater. 



Mr. Cowpers Remarks. — Excrescences not unlike this of the skull, have been 

 observed iu most other bones of the body, the os petrosum, incus, malleus, 

 stapes, &c. not excepted ; and the disease is commonly called spina ventosa. It 

 is remarkable, that the bones of children and young bodies, especially their ap- 

 pendages, are more subject to the like accidents, than those in years ; by reason 

 their fibnllaj are much softer and apt to extend, by which that part of the bone 



