VOL. XXIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 67 1 



eagerly devouring the female. I had three other male spiders^ which I had 

 shut up in the glass tube 48 hours, and so having hindered them all that time 

 from coupling with their females, I concluded I should find seed enough in all 

 of them ; and so it happened accordingly, and I observed the animalcula alive 

 in it. 



Having had frequent discourse with a physician about curing shortness of 

 breath ; he told me, that he was well acquainted with all the sorts of balsam 

 that were esteemed useful in that disease, but that it was impossible to find any 

 vehicle that could insinuate them effectually into the lungs, and that in vain 

 they anoint the breast and stomach with balsams, which could never reach the 

 lungs, and that the scent of the balsam which exhaled from those that used to 

 anoint their breast with oil, does not exhale from the pipes of the lungs, but 

 was evaporated from the breast by the neck. 



I was also persuaded of the truth of this assertion, because I am convinced 

 that nothing that is in the stomach or bowels can be conveyed to the lungs 

 unless it has first passed through the heart ; and consequently much less can 

 balsams, laid on our breasts, find any passage into the lungs. And the only 

 means I could think of, to insinuate the invisible particles of balsam into the 

 lungs, was to take a little piece of silver or copper, of the size of a shilling, 

 and making a small hole in it, to fill the cavity with a little balsam proper for 

 the lungs of one that is troubled with a shortness of breath; that done, let him 

 place it upon the tongue, and stopping his nostrils, let him admit no air into 

 nor from his lungs, but through his mouth ; by which means the subtle par- 

 ticles of the balsam, which I shall call its spirits, may exhale and descend into 

 the pipes of the lungs. 



Or better thus; I took two glass tubes, one of Q inches, and the other of 

 18 long, and of half an inch diameter. I made several bends in these tubes, 

 and made a small hole at the end of each, fit for my purpose, in order to put 

 it into the mouth ; and filling it half full of balsam, I placed it horizontally, 

 that the air passing over the balsam might be conveyed into the lungs, more 

 strongly tinged with the said balsam, than it could be by the other project. 

 But afterwards I rejected this way also, and the next morning I took a glass 

 tube, 15 inches long, and about 1 inch in diameter, as represented abcde &c. 

 fig. 17, pi. 16. DEF the end which is put into the mouth, in order to draw 

 in the air. 



This glass tube, being open at aik, is to be filled with a piece of linen, gauze, 

 or muslin, or a little bit of sponge, of such a size that it might be put into 

 the tube vvitiiout pressing, and that a thread or string might be fastened to it, 

 in order to pull the sponge or linen out of the tube, as seen at kl, the rag or 



