504 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1701. 



This polypus affords us a better idea of the structure of the pulmonary vein, 

 than any figures of that vessel yet published. For though in different subjects 

 of the same species we meet with frequent varieties, in the distribution of the 

 blood-vessels, especially of the veins ; yet we no where find a more constant 

 regularity and uniformity, than in the trunks and large branches of the pul- 

 monary vein ; of which I have added two figures, 2 and 3, drawn after a pre- 

 paration of that vein injected with wax, and freed from the lungs of an adult 

 human body. 



The left auricle of the heart, in human bodies, (fig. 1 and 3) being much 

 less than the right, it was necessary that the part of this vein next the basis of 

 the heart should be very large, as aab, lest the sudden strong motion of the 

 systole should cause the refluent blood to recoil in the branches of this vein, 

 DDEE, and prevent a ready supply in the succeeding diastole of the heart. 

 But the weight of so much blood lying in the trunk of this vessel, aab, effec- 

 tually prevents its retrocession in the lateral branches within the lungs, as ddee, 

 and the more, because the orifices of those branches dd are not diametrically 

 opposite at aa, to the mouth of the vessel on the basis of the heart b, its 

 lateral branches making acute angles with the trunk, as represented by fig. 2. 



A Letter from Dr. John Freind to the Editor, containing the History of an 

 extraordinary Kind of Convulsion. N° 270, p. 799* 



Dr. Freind here gives an account of a remarkable species of convulsion, of a 

 mixed nature between hysteria and epilepsy, occurring in the children* of 2 fami- 

 lies living at Blackthorn, in Oxfordshire. The convulsions were accompanied 

 with an unusual kind of vociferation, and with a nodding of the head, &c. and 

 were preceded by globus hystericus. After these symptoms had continued for 

 some time, the patients would fall upon the ground, after the manner of epi- 

 leptics. This disorder seems to have spread among these young people partly 

 through terror and partly from imitation. 



Of a IVater-Spout observed in the Downs. By the Rev. Mr. Patrick Gordon. 



N° 270, p. SO9. 



Between 10 and 1 1 o'clock I observed a remarkable water-spout in the Downs, 

 It bore N. by E. off our ship, about 2 leagues distance by estimation ; the wind 

 at E. N. E. a top-sail gale, and very cold. Tiie horizon was entirely open 

 and serene, except the northern parts, from N. N. W. to N. E. by E. or 



* All girls, except one, from 6 to 15 years of age. 



