VOL. XXI. 3 ' PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 373 



itself grows tumid, and frequently becomes carious; and this probably might give 

 oc-casion for imposing the name of paedarthrocace on that disease, which is vul- 

 garly called, the joint evil. When the cartilages on the extremities of bones 

 in their articulations are eroded, and their appendages thus diseased, the bony 

 fibres sometimes germinate and unite both bones, in such a manner, that they 

 afteruards appear to be one continued bone, as I have seen in the hip and thigh 

 bone; and again in the thigh bone, the tibia and patella, and frequently in the 

 ossa tarsi, metatarsi, and bones of the toes. This uniting of bones at their 

 articulations may also happen through a defect of the mucilage. 



Account of a Child born without a Brain. By Mons. Bussiere. N° 251, p. 141. 



A woman of a good complexion, and in perfect health during all the time of 

 her pregnancy, was brought to bed of a boy, of a full size, well shaped in his 

 body, and limbs very sound, without the least mark, of coriuption, except that 

 his eyes looked as if they had been placed at the top of the forehead ; the skull 

 was unequal, its skin, though full of hair, was a little redder than the rest of 

 the body. And though it be uncertain whether he was born alive, yet the 

 mother assured M. Bussiere that she felt him stirring an hour before ; and 

 indeed the good condition of his body left no doubt of his having been 

 then living. 



The skin being taken off the skull, the coronal bone was laid flat upon the 

 sphenoid, which made the eyes look as if they had been at the top of the 

 forehead. The squamous part of the temporal bones was wanting, and the os 

 petrosum, the only bone which was in its natural place, and in which the 

 organs of hearing were in good order. There were no parietal bones, nor 

 any thing equivalent, which probably was the cause that the coronal bone was 

 set upon the sphenoid. Of the occipital bone, there was only the basis that 

 joins to the sphenoid, in the middle of which was the great hole, through 

 which the medulla oblongata commonly passes ; all the upper part of this bone 

 being wanting, without any mark of having been corroded or decayed, and its 

 edges very smooth. All the upper part of the bones of the skull being want- 

 ing, the skin had no other support than its basis, which was the reason why 

 the top of the head was very unequal and rough. No brain was found, nor 

 any mark in the whole extent of the skull that there had been any, there being 

 no space left between the basis of the skull and the skin, to contain it ; neither 

 was there any dura mater, the bones being covered only with a very thin mem- 

 brane. Neither the carotid nor the vertebral arteries penetrated the skull, but 

 by small twigs spread themselves in the thin membr.ine. 



The beginning of the spinal marrow was under the fourth vertebra, like a 

 small stump wrapped up in the dura mater ; the medulla was very sound^ and 



